Professor Enigma's Official Site

L.A.'s California Science Center will start the new year defending itself in court for canceling a documentary film attacking Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. A lawsuit alleges that the state-owned center improperly bowed to pressure from the Smithsonian Institution, as well as e-mailed complaints from USC professors and others. It contends that the center violated both the 1st Amendment and a contract to rent the museum's Imax Theater when it canceled the screening of "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record."

The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the American Freedom Alliance, an L.A.-based group described by senior fellow Avi Davis as a nonprofit, nonpartisan "think tank and activist network promoting Western values and ideals." The AFA seeks punitive damages and compensation for financial losses, as well as a declaration from the court that the center violated the Constitution and cannot refuse the group the right to rent its facilities for future events.

The AFA had planned an Oct. 25 screening of two films at the Exposition Park museum -- one a short Imax movie called "We are Born of Stars," which favors Darwin's theory; the other, "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record," a feature-length documentary that criticizes Darwin and promotes intelligent design.

Treasury announced in a short press release, that the federal government would cover all of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac losses between now and 2012. Previous to this announcement, Treasury had agreed to cover up to $400 billion in Fannie and Freddie losses. Remember this isn’t an investment that will come back to the taxpayer, it is a loss. And a loss that will exceed anything seen under the TARP. As if $400 billion were not a sufficient hit to the taxpayer, Treasury has not decided that additional losses will also be covered. All this without so much as even a press conference; much less a vote of Congress. So much for accountability and transparency.

[Pete Stark is] getting investigated: the Washington Times is guessing tax evasion, real estate where-does-he-actually-live edition. Yes. You’re all shocked that a Democratic politician wasn’t paying his taxes. This got reported back in March, mind you. And they’re getting around to checking it out now. But no doubt the federal government will be much quicker about having that suspicious dark spot in your next X-ray properly assessed.

Before 1990, [California and Texas] grew much faster than the rest of the country. Since then, only Texas has continued to do so. While its share of the nation’s population has steadily increased, from 6.8 percent in 1990 to 7.9 percent in 2007, California’s has barely budged, from 12 percent to 12.1 percent... The biggest contrast between the two states shows up in "net internal migration," the demographer’s term for the difference between the number of Americans who move into a state from another and the number who move out of it to another. Between April 1, 2000, and June 30, 2007, an average of 3,247 more Americans moved out of California than into it every week, according to the Census Bureau. Over the same period, Texas saw a net gain, in an average week, of 1,544 people... According to a report issued earlier this year by McKinsey & Company, Texas students "are, on average, one to two years of learning ahead of California students of the same age," though expenditures per public school student are 12 percent higher in California...

The Census Bureau’s latest figures cover the year 2006, and show that California’s local government employees were paid at an average annual rate of $60,780, 33% above the national average. … California’s public workers receive more, often significantly more, than government employees in other states with high living costs. Californians who work for local governments were paid 7.7%, 9.1%, 11.5%, and 21.4% more than their counterparts in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts respectively... Adjusted for inflation, California’s per-capita outlays increased by 21.7% between 1992 and 2006; the increase for the other 49 states and the District of Columbia was 18.2%. What’s striking is that California is an exception to the pattern we were told to expect in Statistics 101, the regression to the mean. The states where inflation-adjusted, per-capita government outlays grew the fastest between 1992 and 2006 were, generally speaking, ones where those outlays were among the lowest to begin with. Conversely, of the ten states that had the highest per-capita public expenditures in 1991-92, California and Wyoming are the only two that saw those expenditures, adjusted for inflation, grow faster than the national average over the next 14 years.

This month, the mathematics report card was delivered: Chicago trailed several cities in performance and progress made over six years. Miami, Houston and New York had higher scores than Chicago on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Boston, San Diego and Atlanta had bigger gains. Even fourth-graders in the much-maligned D.C. schools improved nearly twice as much since 2003.

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the attempted destruction of Flight 253 were released from Guantanamo two years ago. The case for indefinite detention has been made once again, and not in Illinois.

Immigration hardliners argue the activists are aiding illegal entry to the United States, a felony. Even migrants and their sympathizers question whether the device will make the treacherous journeys easier. The designers - three visual artists on UCSD's faculty and an English professor at the University of Michigan–are undeterred as they criticize a U.S. policy they say embraces illegal immigrants for cheap labor while letting them die crossing the border.

So what can we do to effectively buffer global warming? The most obvious strategy is to make an all-out effort to reduce emissions of methane. Sometimes called the "other greenhouse gas," methane is responsible for 75% as much warming as carbon dioxide measured over any given 20 years. Unlike carbon dioxide, which remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, methane lasts only a decade but packs a powerful punch while it's there.

Methane's short life makes it especially interesting in the short run, given the pace of climate change. If we need to suppress temperature quickly in order to preserve glaciers, reducing methane can make an immediate impact. Compared to the massive requirements necessary to reduce CO2, cutting methane requires only modest investment. Where we stop methane emissions, cooling follows within a decade, not centuries. That could make the difference for many fragile systems on the brink.

Well the -- we have all kinds of places where the government has gotten involved with health care and mandating insurance. In most states, the government mandates the buying of car insurance, and I can assure everyone that if anything in this bill is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court will weigh in.

If he [some clown named Andrew Sullivan] really wanted a chart that captures what’s wrong with America’s health care system, he should have gone to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ national health expenditures data website and downloaded the figures showing how rampant third-party payment has resulted in consumers directly paying for less than 12 percent of health care costs. And when people are purchasing something with (what is perceived to be) other people’s money, it’s understandable that they don’t pay much attention to cost. My homemade chart does not compared to the one produced by National Geographic, but it does identify the real problem. Sadly, Obama’s plan (like Bush’s Medicare expansion, and everything else politicians have done for the past 50 years) will exacerbate the third-party payment problem and lead to even higher costs and more inefficiency.

Gen. Anthony Cucolo is in command of 22,000 American combat forces in northern Iraq. Unlike some high-ranking military men who demonstrate exemplary courage in the face of the enemy but collapse like paper umbrellas in the face of political pressure, Cucolo seemed ready for the political firefight he precipitated. At least at first. General Cucolo’s provocation was as follows: Pursuant to his powers as a general officer, he issued regulations for soldiers under his command. Some dealt with Iraqi sensibilities (soldiers were forbidden to enter mosques except in cases of "military necessity"), and others with good order and discipline (no gambling or drug use). Additionally, the general directed that soldiers who become pregnant or impregnate others while deployed would be subject to courts martial. Uh-oh.

Cue the feminists. "How dare any government say we’re going to impose any kind of punishment on women for getting pregnant," fumed Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. "This is not the 1800s." Four Democratic senators dashed off a public letter. "We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished simply for conceiving a child," protested Sens. Barbara Mikulski, Barbara Boxer, Jeanne Shaheen, and Kirsten Gillibrand. "This defies comprehension. As such, we urge you to immediately rescind this policy."

But General Cucolo was prepared. Asked about the critical reaction, he said, "I appreciate the inflamed — I got it. Here’s the deal. I’m the one responsible, and I mean this sincerely, and I mean this with — I hope I’m not sounding — it doesn’t matter. I am the one responsible and accountable for these 22,000 soldiers. The National Organization for Women is not. Critics are not. I appreciate — I will listen to critics, and they add thought. But they actually don’t have to do anything. I have to accomplish a very complex mission, very complex." Don’t you particularly like the "I hope I’m not sounding — it doesn’t matter"?

It’s true that United States senators don’t really have to do anything. But it would be nice if they thought of themselves as representing the interests of the nation from time to time, and not just as compliant mouthpieces for interest groups. Do any of these liberal senators ever lift their sights enough to recognize that an army is not a social-welfare agency? Feminists, above all, should recognize that when a woman takes an oath as a soldier, she has freely undertaken extraordinary responsibilities. If she becomes undeployable and has to be sent home (the unavoidable consequence of becoming pregnant), someone else must serve in her place. The Army loses a valuable investment, and the unit is left vulnerable. As General Cucolo explained, "I need every soldier I’ve got, especially since we are facing a drawdown of forces during our mission. Anyone who leaves this fight earlier than the expected twelve-month deployment creates a burden on their teammates.

It took a tough question from Matt Lauer, but after having laughably claimed that "the system worked," DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has now conceded the obvious: that the security system that permitted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board NWA 253 with explosives "failed miserably."

The rail business is not going to go anyplace," the billionaire investor told Rose, BNSF's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "It's going to be right here in the United States. There's going to be four big railroads that are moving more and more goods. So it's... a good business."

Buffett says the deal, his biggest acquisition in the 44 years he has run Berkshire, is driven by his belief that railroads have transformed themselves into highly efficient businesses whose networks will fill up with freight as the economy recovers.

"It has to do well if the country does well," Buffett said, "and the country is going to do well." He also makes it clear that the purchase is a bet on the prospects for the U.S. economy over the next half century — not a bet on a near-term recovery.

On December 15, Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois introduced his version of Comprehensive Immigration Reform to the House of Representatives. Amongst its many provisions, the bill would eliminate the successful 287(g) immigration enforcement program in which local law enforcement are trained and deputized by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to carry out federal immigration law... the Obama administration announced changes to the Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) that are signed by participating agencies. Law enforcement must now pursue the criminal charges for which an illegal alien is arrested rather than simply initiating removal, and are to limit immigration status checks to only those arrested for "major" offenses. These changes were a strike against the very heart of the program.

In the past seven years, more than 120,000 illegal immigrants have been identified within the US by the 66 state and local law enforcement agencies that have signed Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) to participate in 287(g). This program has helped to remove dangerous criminal aliens from the US. For example, one participating agency, the Davidson County Sherriff’s Office, has cited 287(g) in leading to the arrest of 90 gang leaders within their jurisdiction. Before 287(g), when a suspected illegal immigrant was identified by local law enforcement, all that could be done was notify ICE and wait. In many cases, this meant that illegal immigrants went free because ICE simply did not have the manpower to retrieve all such individuals.

A thrice-convicted illegal immigrant drug dealer long protected by a sanctuary state is frantically trying to evade a life prison sentence by arguing that it’s "cruel and unusual punishment" in his native Mexico. In a classic only-in-America fable, the illegal alien (Vicente Corona) had previously been deported after one of the convictions but returned to the U.S. to continue peddling cocaine for Mexican drug cartels. He operated his criminal enterprise in California, which offers illegal immigrants sanctuary, and was protected from deportation after two state drug convictions.

A separate federal conviction actually got the Mexican illegal immigrant deported in the early 1990s, but he returned to his beloved Golden State where he remained for years before getting busted again on federal charges and subsequently convicted in a massive mail order cocaine conspiracy. The conviction means a mandatory life sentence for Corona who was found guilty last year by a federal jury in Tennessee of supplying a network that funneled through the mail millions of dollars in cocaine from California to Knoxville. A federal judge flatly rejected Corona’s pathetic argument this week that life in prison is cruel and unusual punishment.

After a gun-wielding student killed 32 at Virginia Tech, faculty at Colorado State University in Fort Collins found, to their alarm, that theirs was one of the few public schools in the country with no policy banning firearms. Anyone with a concealed weapons permit could legally carry on campus. Students, however, were alarmed when the faculty moved to change that.

Among other arguments, students contended that permitting people to carry concealed weapons was the campus' best defense against another tragedy. "Let's say you have another Columbine or Virginia Tech," said Dan Gearhart, the student government president. "People want the ability to protect themselves."

Wind-power projects funded in part by the $787-billion Recovery Act (stimulus law) are coming under scrutiny at a time when President Obama and other Democrats have promoted alternative forms of energy production. Two New York Democrats – Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Eric Massa – are among the lawmakers criticizing specific wind-power projects that are getting hundreds of millions in taxpayer subsidies.

A "definitive agreement" was reached on one of those projects two weeks ago, according to a Dec. 20 news release from the Austin, Texas-based Cielo Wind Power. The deal is between Cielo, U.S. Renewable Energy Group and China-based Shenyang Power Group. The $1.5 billion project – which is getting $450 million in stimulus funds – is supposed to create 2,000 to 3,000 jobs. The problem is, most of those jobs will be in China, Sen. Schumer said, because that’s where the wind turbines will be constructed. Another 300 temporary jobs will be created in Texas.

The top prosecutors in seven states are probing the constitutionality of a political deal that cut a funding break for Nebraska in order to pass a federal health care reform bill, South Carolina's attorney general said Tuesday. Attorney General Henry McMaster said he and his counterparts in Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Texas and Washington state — all Republicans — are jointly taking a look at the deal they've dubbed the "Nebraska compromise."

"The Nebraska compromise, which permanently exempts Nebraska from paying Medicaid costs that Texas and all other 49 states must pay, may violate the United States Constitution — as well as other provisions of federal law," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said... Nebraska wasn't alone in getting Medicaid breaks. Vermont, Louisiana and Massachusetts also got help with their programs.

A last-minute addition to the Senate health-care bill that requires small construction companies to offer health coverage or pay a fine touched off a battle Tuesday with some industry groups demanding its removal. The change, offered by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), says construction companies should offer coverage if they have five or more employees and a payroll of $250,000 or more, or face fines of up to $750 per employee per year if the employees receive tax credits. The threshold for other types of companies is 50... [Julie Edwards, a spokeswoman for Mr. Merkley] said the goal was to level the playing field for companies that have to bid against others who might not be providing health-care coverage. She said 90% of construction firms employ fewer than 20 employees, so with the 50-employee threshold, most of the construction industry would have been exempt, she said.

There is an implicit maximum legal premium in the Senate bill. It results from the combination of the 40% excise tax on "excessive" premiums (over $8,500 for a single plan) and the 85% medical loss ratio (the percent of premiums that must be spent paying claims). A little algebra shows that if the premium exceeds 1.6 times the threshold, then it’s impossible to both required medical loss ratio and pay the excise tax. This implies a maximum legal premium of $13,600. At that amount, the entire premium would be taken up by claims and the excise tax – leaving nothing for administrative cost – and even nothing to pay the "annual fee" tax on health insurance, let alone profit.

Of course, in the real world it would become impossible at a much lower premium, since (a) there are always some administrative costs, and (b) there is the "annual fee" tax on health insurers based on market share that is in addition to the high-premium tax, not to mention state premium taxes and other non-avoidable expenses. Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that the "annual fee" tax based on market share works out to $50 per person ($10bil after 2016, for about 200 million people) and administrative costs are $500 per person (similar to the current values for both Medicare and private plans), and the "high cost" premium threshold is $8500 for a single-person policy. Also, assume there are no state premium taxes, no other taxes or required expenses, and no profits.

In that case, the premium minus the excise tax minus $500 minus $50 has to be no more than 85% of the premium. This implies a maximum attainable premium of $11,400, of which $9690 would be spent on claims. If you add in a fairly typical 2% state premium tax to the above assumptions about admin costs and "annual fee" tax, and still assume no other cost, the maximum premium drops to $10,555.55 – and the maximum possible amount for medical claims is $8972.

Every increase in taxes or administrative expenses DECREASES the amount legally "left over" to pay medical claims. Each increase of $1 in taxes or other expenses requires a reduction of $6.67 in medical claims. It should be obvious that it would be very easy for regulators to design a plan with a minimum benefit package that is high enough (say, above $8972 in average claims) that makes it literally impossible for health plans to break even, let alone make a profit.

In 1994, when the Clinton administration attempted to push a health care reform plan through a Democratic Congress that also mandated every American buy health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office determined that the government had never ordered Americans to buy anything. "The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States," the CBO analysis said. "An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.

The Framers believed the Constitution recognized pre-existing rights, protecting them from violation by the government. The common law likewise developed as a way of protecting people from wrongful interference by their neighbors. If people have rights simply by virtue of being human, those rights can be violated (by theft or murder, for example) even in the absence of government. By contrast, notwithstanding Reid’s claim that government-subsidized health care is a fundamental human right, it does not make much sense to say that it exists in a country too poor to afford such subsidies or at a time before modern medicine, let alone in the state of nature. Did Paleolithic hunter-gatherers have a right to the "affordable, comprehensive and high-quality medical care" that the Congressional Progressive Caucus says is a right of "every person"? If so, who was violating that right?

During his second presidential debate with Republican nominee John McCain, Obama said health care "should be a right for every American." Why? "There's something fundamentally wrong," he said, "in a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills." According to the president, people have a right to health care because it is wrong to charge them for medical services they can’t afford. Which is another way of saying they have a right to health care.

While liberty rights such as freedom of speech or freedom of contract require others to refrain from acting in certain ways, "welfare rights" such as the purported entitlement to health care (or to food, clothing, or shelter) require others to perform certain actions. They represent a legally enforceable claim on other people’s resources. Taxpayers must cover the cost of subsidies; insurers and medical professionals must provide their services on terms dictated by the government. A right to health care thus requires the government to infringe on people’s liberty rights by commandeering their talents, labor, and earnings. And since new subsidies will only exacerbate the disconnect between payment and consumption that drives health care inflation, such interference is bound to increase as the government struggles to control ever-escalating spending. Rising costs will also encourage the government to repeatedly redefine the right to health care, deciding exactly which treatments it includes.

President Barack Obama's commitment to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by next month may be delayed until 2011 because it will take months for the government to buy an Illinois prison and upgrade it to hold suspected terrorists. The drawn-out construction timetable shows the political risk of Obama's pledge, a delay that could even be extended by congressional opposition to funding the purchase and upgrades for the Thomson Correctional Center, an underused state facility about 150 miles west of Chicago.

Not only did China, a veto-wielding permanent member, this week reiterate its longstanding opposition to such a move, but joining Lebanon as another non-permanent newcomer is Brazil, whose President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hosted Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month and voiced opposition to further sanctions against Tehran. Two other new council members are Nigeria and Gabon, which like Lebanon are also members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a bloc supportive of Iran.

Detroit's (predominantly black) public schools are the worst in the nation and it takes some doing to be worse than Washington, D.C. Only 3 percent of Detroit's fourth-graders scored proficient on the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, sometimes called "The Nation's Report Card." Twenty-eight percent scored basic and 69 percent below basic. "Below basic" is the NAEP category when students are unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade level. It's the same story for Detroit's eighth-graders. Four percent scored proficient, 18 percent basic and 77 percent below basic... The fact of business is higher teacher salaries and smaller class sizes mean little or nothing in terms of academic achievement. Washington, D.C., for example spends over $15,000 per student, has class sizes smaller than the nation's average, and with an average annual salary of $61,195, its teachers are the most highly paid in the nation."

It shall not be in order in the Senate to consider a congressionally directed spending item, a limited tax benefit, or a limited tariff benefit, if a Senator, Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner has conditioned the inclusion of language to provide funding for a congressional directed spending item, a limited tax benefit, or a limited tariff benefit in any amendment, bill, or joint resolution (or an accompanying report) or in any conference report on a bill or joint resolution (including an accompanying joint explanatory statement of managers) on any vote cast by any Senator, Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner.

Violating its own guarantee of unprecedented transparency, the White House is blocking an investigation into the controversial firing of an inspector general who exposed one of President Obama’s political supporters—a California mayor—for misusing federal funds... The mayor (Obama pal Kevin Johnson) illegally used the money to pay volunteers for political activities, run personal errands and even wash his car. Johnson, a former professional basketball player, acknowledged that there "may have been administrative errors" and reached a settlement with federal prosecutors to repay about half of the money. This certainly indicates that Walpin did his job of rooting out government fraud, waste and abuse quite efficiently.

It also explains why Obama has yet to come up with a valid reason—other than retaliation for busting his corrupt friend—to fire Walpin. The president violated a law that safeguards the independence of government agency watchdogs and the Democratic senator (Missouri’s Claire McCaskill) who authored the measure blasted the commander-in-chief for removing an inspector general who exposed widespread waste in taxpayer-financed community service groups. Obama "failed to follow the proper procedure" in notifying Congress about the removal and for failing to give a valid reason for the termination, according to McCaskill.

The Senate language, which was negotiated by Senators Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray, who are very strong defenders of women's health services and choices for women, take a big step forward from where the House left it with the Stupak amendment. Everybody in the exchange would do the same thing, whether you're male or female, whether you're 75 or 25, you would all set aside a portion of your premium that would go into a fund, and it will not be earmarked for anything, it would be a separate account that everyone in the exchange would pay. It's really an accounting measure that would apply across the board and not just to women and certainly not just to women who want to choose abortion coverage.

[DeMint] pointed out that the Reid bill declares on page 1020 that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board cannot be repealed by future Congresses:

"There's one provision that I found particularly troubling and it's under section c, titled ‘limitations on changes to this subsection.’ And I quote -- ‘it shall not be in order in the senate or the house of representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.’ This is not legislation. it's not law. This is a rule change. It's a pretty big deal. we will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law."

"I'm not even sure that it's constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. I don't see why the majority party wouldn't put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates. I mean, we want to bind future congresses. this goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future congresses."

Get that? No repeal, no amendments, no nothing. That part of Obamacare is as set in stone as the idea that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It is unalterable - which, of course, means the entire bill is off limits.

I am incredibly concerned that the Democrats’ proposed individual mandate provision takes away too much freedom and choice from Americans across the country... Forcing every American to purchase a product is absolutely inconsistent with our Constitution and the freedoms our Founding Fathers hoped to protect.

The Senate Republican Leadership under Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander told us to trust them. They were going to offer a series of "messaging amendments" to point out all the flaws in the health care legislation. The rest of us said no — force a vote on the legislation while the Dems did not have 60 votes. They ignored us. Then we said drag out the legislation as long as possible. They ignored us until votes were scheduled, making the dragging out impossible. When the scheduled time for the votes came, it did not matter if the bill was being read, the votes would happen.

Along the way, McConnell and Alexander pooh-poohed anyone who suggested the messaging strategy was doomed to failure. There were 501 amendments offered. Mitch McConnell offered only one. Lamar Alexander? He did not offer a single one.

So intent on avoiding being labeled by their friends in the press and on the aisle opposite as "the Party of No," they rolled over and became the "Party of No Problem." The Senate GOP Leadership’s fall back claim is that they only had 40 seats. Well, Mitch McConnell started with 55. Had he done his job when Ted Stevens fell to scandal in 2007, we would probably have a Republican Senator from Alaska. Likewise, in offering up a host of Republicans with little to distinguish them from the Democrats, his ultimate strategy had to focus on keeping Olympia Snowe on board instead of picking off just one Democrat.

[T]he Manager’s Amendment adds under Section 9010(c)(2) a new subsection (C) tailored to exempt Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and a new subsection (E) tailored to exempt Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska from paying the new health insurance premium taxes... Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska dominates that state’s individual insurance market with over 38,000 covered lives. However, last year almost 10,000 Nebraskans got individual coverage from one of 15 other insurers. If they want to keep that coverage in the future, they’ll have to pay the new premium taxes.

Similarly, last year BC&BS of Nebraska covered 36.000 Nebraska federal workers, retirees and their dependents through FEHBP, while another 318 got their FEHBP coverage from Aetna, Coventry or United. Sure, that’s only a tiny minority. The new premium taxes ought to teach them to stop making such silly choices. Now what about those Nebraska small businesses that buy group coverage for their workers and their families? Well, last year 194,000 Nebraskans were enrolled in group coverage offered by BC&BS of Nebraska — but another 171,000 got group coverage from one of 16 other insurers offering plans in the state. Hmmm. Looks like those constituents didn’t get cut in on the deal.

Then there are the Nebraska retirees who opted for a Medicare Advantage plan. Last year only 29 percent of them picked BC&BS of Nebraska, while 47 percent picked United, 15 percent picked Coventry and the rest chose one of two other plans. So, some of those Nebraska grandparents are going to need to pony-up the taxes if they want to keep their current coverage. Oh, and what about the over 31,000 Nebraskans with Delta Dental coverage? They’ll get nicked a bit for the new premium tax as well — but the good news is that BC&BS of Nebraska also offers group dental coverage.

Singer wrote, quite correctly, that in "Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits... [and] low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients"... The Senate health bill supposedly intends to slash Medicare payment rates for physicians by 21% next year and more in future years, with permanent reductions in payments to other medical services too. It would also establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board which would be empowered to make deeper cuts which Congress could reject only with considerable difficulty. If that’s not quite a "death panel" it would surely not be pro-life in its impact. The Congressional Budget Office says, "It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would... reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care"...

As Sarah Palin predicted, "Government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course.

The federal deficit was $1.4 trillion in the fiscal year that ended in September, or 10% of GDP, the largest peacetime deficit on record. But net interest – the cost of servicing the national debt – was only 1.3% of GDP, the lowest in about 40 years. For comparison, net interest was absorbing about 3% of GDP in the 1980s and 1990s. In other words, loose money has created a temporary mirage where a massive increase in government spending appears to be an easy burden to carry. In particular, the mirage of low rates colors the public’s view of legislative efforts to fully nationalize the US healthcare system, making it seem more affordable than it is in reality.

How is this any different than the housing market from a few years back? Homeowners [aided by Fannie, Freddie, HUD and the FHA] thought they could afford a larger home as long as they assumed interest rates would stay low forever. Just like homeowners who relied too much on short-term adjustable rate mortgages, the federal government’s average debt maturity remains less than 4.5 years, which means net interest costs will soar over the next several years as the government rolls over its debt at higher interest rates.

XTO has helped develop new technologies that let it drill a single well 9,000 feet and then bore horizontally through shale formations to unlock the natural gas trapped in the porous rock. The rock is fractured and the gas is pushed into accessible pockets whence it can be extracted with a minimal surface footprint. Because of these new technologies, it is estimated that the U.S. sits on 83% more recoverable natural gas than was thought in 1990.

The Barnett Shale rock formations of Texas and Louisiana, the Bakken Shale formation in Montana and North Dakota, and the Marcellus Shale formation running through New York and Pennsylvania and other states may hold as much as 2,000 trillion cubic feet of this clean-burning, domestically produced fuel. We are the Saudi Arabia of shale. At current use, we have an estimated 90-year supply, if we are allowed to get at it.

Soros owns a major stake in a company called InterOil, a company that has discovered a large natural gas field in Papua, New Guinea, with which American shale resources would compete. Soros would rather have us import his liquefied natural gas than develop our own. His allies in the media, the environmental movement and the Democratic caucus are all too eager to exploit public fears to do it.

Roger Willis owns a hydraulic fracturing company in the Pennsylvania town of Meadville. He says thousands of frack jobs have been done in rock formations above and below the Marcellus Shale in New York state with no aquifer damage. "This 60-year-old technique has been responsible for 7 billion barrels of oil and 600 trillion cubic feet of natural gas," according to Sen. James Inhofe, ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. "In hydraulic fracturing's 60-year history, there has not been a single documented case of contamination."

[Henry] Waxman, an extremely liberal member of Congress, modeled his [cap-and-trade] bill, in part, after similar laws that had already passed California's Democratic-controlled state legislature. Some of these state laws are now beginning to take effect in America's most populous state. One example is the California Public Utilities Commission requiring all utilities to install new "smart meter" boxes on homes and businesses in the state. The new meters will give public utilities greater control and monitoring ability over private household and business energy use.

The new system will eventually affect the way we use energy. Using their new meters, the utilities will be able to change rates -- in the middle of the day, if they wish. Ultimately, they will even be able to monitor and control home energy use when the "smart grid" is online (see page 122, section 141-146 of the legislation). This technology will ultimately allow "big brother" to control thermostats and temperatures of refrigerators and freezers as well. So imagine my reaction recently when my local utility company showed up to install a "smart meter" on my house. I objected, but was told by the utility supervisor of the "smart meter group" that, as a customer, I didn't have the choice of opting out. But what I found most surprising was what the second-tier supervisor admitted to me. She said chip technology will be in place soon to control our thermostats, noting that it's just a matter of time for it to be implemented. And she added that "we still have the choice" of opting out if we want to. Yeah, right!

Liberal politicians think they know what's best for all of us. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), for example, wants nothing less than total control of our personal energy use. And it seems contradictory, don't you think, that these same Democratic leaders don't appear to be interested in abiding by the same rules they want to force upon us? It was during the presidential campaign last year when Barack Obama said "we can't... keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times and then expect that other countries are going to say okay." Yet White House senior aide Barry -- responding recently to a question about President Obama cranking up his thermostat this winter -- simply stated: "He's from Hawaii... he likes it warm."

The payments are actually legal under a 1975 federal law that provides a lucrative public allowance for House Speakers to set up and operate an office for five years after leaving office. Hastert, an Illinois Republican who was speaker from 1999 to 2007, uses the money to pay for an office in his home state, pay the six-figure salaries of three assistants, satellite television service and to lease a sports utility vehicle. Hastert is not supposed to use his government-funded perks to do any lobbying work, but he probably does since he has no other office or assistants set aside for his hectic lobbying business. Each of his three assistants made more than $100,000 last year and the government dished out an additional $2,000 a month for a "consulting firm" run by several of Hastert’s former congressional aides. American taxpayers also spent thousands on office computers, laptops a printer and other supplies utilized by his private firm.