What do you do when you can’t run on your record? If you watch the Democrats you will find out. The answer is to manufacture bogus issues out of thin air and try to anger and scare people into voting against dismal Democrat policies.

It was just a short while ago that New York Congressman Tim Bishop introduced a bill called the U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act. Never mind that there are no significant call centers in Bishop’s Congressional district on the east end of Long Island. Never mind that his district is still losing jobs that are unrelated to call centers. This is a top priority of his. Why? Because he thinks that if he can get the topic of outsourcing on the table, he might have a fighting chance of holding his seat, because his opponent doesn’t hold a fourteenth century world view that our economy is confined to our borders. We live in a global economy like it or not and we are able to buy affordable products because some of them are made or serviced in other countries. In a similar vein our economy is able to grow and add jobs because we sell high-end products like Boeing jets to their economies.

The Birth Control Brouhaha

Now we have the national Democrat party trying to manufacture an issue over birth control. For those who have been watching the Republican presidential debates, who wasn’t scratching their heads over George Stephanopoulos’ questions and persistent follow-ups about states regulating contraception. Huh? Where did that come from? Dick Morris seems to have figured it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcBLSp0RScE

It will not be long before the ads start rolling out that the Republican nominee, whoever that may be, favors states banning contraception. With enough lies and distortion, the Democrats hope to make an issue where none exists. There is no movement to ban contraceptives in this country. But under the Constitution could a state ban them? Yes. (Note that I say under the Constitution, not under an activist Supreme Court that likes to rewrite the Constitution as they go along). So the question asked, will be a Constitutional one, the ad that will follow will be that the Republican candidate favors what the Constitution merely allows. I think the Constitution also allows states to pass laws banning silly hats in public, that doesn’t mean that everyone who believe in the Constitution believes in such laws. It is the electorate’s job to police that nonsense.

The Real Issue

What  is being missed here is the real issue. If contraceptives should be required to be provided and free under ObamaCare, why not toothpaste? Why not soap or deodorant? Band-Aids? Tums? Kleenex? Birth control pills cost about $15-$50 per month, according to Planned Parenthood. For this you need insurance? That is the cost of 2-3 packs of cigarettes, 2-3 gallon jugs of milk. Perhaps if you can’t afford to come up with that much cash, you should learn to play Pinochle until you can. How about splitting the cost with the other partner? Hell, a bottle of wine to get the festivities started will get you half way there.

The real problem is we have lost the concept of insurance. Insurance is designed to prevent a financial catastrophe from striking due to an unforeseen event. Heart attack, cancer, something that is very expensive and very unwelcome. The brouhaha over birth control is like lobbying for your auto insurance to cover your gas purchases, or your life insurance to cover your groceries. It is beyond ridiculous and it will guarantee that health care costs will not be curtailed by ObamaCare but accelerate until either the cost is astronomical or we will have to wait weeks, months, or years for service. There is a reason that you have to wait about three months to get a CT can in Canada today, but if you want to get one for your dog, it will be about three weeks. The CT scan for you is free through government health insurance. The CT scan for your dog is out of your pocket.  It is simple economics; supply and demand. If you fix the price then you have to wait. It may be free, but you could die waiting. Perhaps that’s how ObamaCare plans to save money.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

That was the famous “Pottery Barn” analogy that Colin Powell used regarding the war in Iraq.  Now that ObamaCare + Reconciliation is done, all the ugly details that come crawling out of the health care bill like cockroaches when you turn the lights on, will all come to you courtesy of the Democrats. 

Because they chose to go the reconciliation route, the Senate could not dare change a word in the House bill of “fixes” so they could approve what the House sent them with less than 60 votes.  Here’s a sampling of what the genius of government brings you, wrapped in arrogance, with a bow of disdain for the people, as reported by Kimberly Strassel in the Wall Street Journal:

“Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) offered language to bar the government from subsidizing erectile dysfunction drugs for convicted pedophiles and rapists. Democrats voted . . . No! Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) proposed exempting wounded soldiers from the new tax on medical devices. Democrats: No way! Pat Roberts (R., Kan.) wanted to exempt critical access rural hospitals from funding cuts. Senate Democrats: Forget it! This was Republicans’ opportunity to lay out every ugly provision and consequence of ObamaCare, and Democrats—because of the process they’d chosen—had to defend it all.

And so it went, into the wee Thursday hours. All Democrats in favor of taxing pacemakers? Aye! All Democrats in favor of keeping those seedy vote buyoffs? Aye! All Democrats in favor of raising taxes on middle-income families? Aye! All Democrats in favor of exempting themselves from elements of ObamaCare? Aye!”

Now doesn’t that just make you warm and fuzzy inside? 

Bill O’Reilly and Congressman Anthony Weiner had a debate on O’Reilly ‘s show that was jaw-dropping to listen to.  Weiner said that O’Reilly and others were blatantly misstating the facts about the health care bill.  O’Reilly questioned Weiner about the IRS learning details about people such as whether or not they had health insurance.  Weiner said that was untrue and that if you wanted to get a tax credit for health care, you had to say on your tax return that you had health insurance.  He said it is just like if you claimed a tax credit as a first time homebuyer (I won’t get into all the fraud taking place on the homebuyer credit, even by IRS employees). So according to Weiner it’s all voluntary reporting, just as takes place every year when we file our taxes.  How can Weiner stand there and make such a statement?  A key requirement is that everyone has to be covered by health insurance according to the law and the law provides for hiring 16,000 more IRS agents!  Well what are those agents going to be doing if not following up with you if you don’t say you are covered?  Weiner danced and dodged and at one point stood silently pouting when O’Reilly tried to pin him down.

This is ugly and it is going to get uglier as we learn what is in this cancer on our economy.  But Nancy Pelosi warned us.  “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”  Well, they passed it, now we get all the bad news.

In 1962 Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring, about which some have credited the beginning of the environmental movement.  It also led to the subsequent ban of DDT in 1972.  DDT was accused of causing cancer and in damaging wildlife, particularly birds by causing eggshells to thin.

Prior to this DDT was believed to be a miracle, and the scientist who discovered it, Dr. Paul Muller, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1948.  During WWII, GIs would cover themselves liberally with the substance before heading into the jungles for protection against malaria.  It is also believed that its use eradicated malaria in the U.S. and other developed countries.

Flawed Science

A 1969 study found a higher incidence of tumors in mice that were fed DDT.  Let’s think about that.  A single study found an increase in cancer in mice fed DDT.  However over 20 years of widespread use among humans did not show any increase in the cancer rate among those populations that used them.  Upon closer examination of the study they found that both the subject and control groups had increased levels of tumors. Oops.  It appears that both groups were fed moldy food that contained a carcinogen.  When the test was repeated, neither group had any tumors.

The studies of birds whose eggshells were thin, were also given closer scrutiny.  It was determined that the cause was due to a calcium deficiency, not DDT.  Actually during the period of greatest DDT use in the U.S. many of the bird species under study grew in numbers rather than fell.

Don’t Let Science Stand in the Way of Politics

In 1971, authority for pesticides was transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency.  What better way to kick off a new government bureaucracy than some bold action:

“In April 1972, after seven months of testimony, Judge Edmund Sweeney stated that ‘DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man. . . . The uses of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlife. . . . The evidence in this proceeding supports the conclusion that there is a present need for the essential uses of DDT.’” — Sweeney EM. EPA Hearing Examiner’s recommendations and findings concerning DDT hearings. 25 April 1972 (40 CFR 164.32)

However, two months later, the new head of the EPA, William Ruckleshaus, instituted the ban on DDT.  This was done without him attending a single hearing on the matter as it was discussed over a seven month period or reading the transcripts.

The Tragic Results

In Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka, widespread use of DDT cut the number of malaria cases from 2.8 million in 1948 to 17, that’s right, seventeen in 1963.  Spraying was stopped in 1964 and by 1969 the number of cases had risen again to 2.5 million.

It is estimated that in the last ten years alone the number of deaths worldwide from malaria is over 27 million.

There is an aggressive program today to raise money to buy bed nets to protect children in Africa and other parts of the world where malaria is still rampant.  Billions of dollars are estimated to be needed to buy and deliver these nets.  One of the positive factors about DDT was that it was inexpensive, around seventeen cents per pound.

If only had cooler heads prevailed, and the “science” looked at with a reasonable dose of skepticism, tens of millions of lives would have been saved and malaria, perhaps eradicated.  But when some in the environmental movement latch onto a position it soon moves into the realm of settled or consensus science.

The Next Blunder

So before we drive the world over the next environmental cliff, perhaps it’s time to tune out Al Gore, take a cleansing breath, and take a closer look at the science with clear eyes.  What the global warming, er, global climate change crowd is proposing would cost in the trillions. Let’s ask if what some scientists are saying that global temperature peaked about ten years ago, why is the earth cooling if we continue to pour more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?  Why are we calling carbon dioxide, which is essential to life…we exhale it, trees take it in and give off oxygen…a pollutant?  What if we eradicate the pollutant, carbon dioxide like we did DDT?

Will there be anyone around to count the damage?