Dick Cheney and the Fifth Amendment

Is the former vice president of the United States preparing to plead the Fifth Amendment if prosecutor John Durham tries to ask him questions about CIA interrogations of terror suspects?

That's what it sounded like today on Fox News Sunday.

"Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he might refuse to speak with a prosecutor investigating suspected CIA prisoner abuses, a probe he branded as political and bad for national security," Reuters reported.

"It will depend on the circumstances and what I think their activities are really involved in," Mr. Cheney said, when asked whether he would talk to Mr. Durham if the prosecutor sought him out for questioning.

That's an odd answer.

However ill-advised or politically motivated an investigation might be, it's not usually up to the witnesses whether they will answer questions.

If the prosecutor subpoenas Mr. Cheney, is there some way he could avoid testifying?

Could he claim executive privilege?

Not likely. He's not the president now and he wasn't the president then, and in any case there's no such thing as executive privilege, not if anyone cares to get tough on the subject. (See "President Bush's unicorn" and legal historian Raoul Berger's 1974 book, Executive Privilege: A Constitutional Myth. )

Could he intimidate the prosecutor into backing away from the idea of questioning him?

Probably not. Not unless he has photos of John Durham swinging from a chandelier in a black spandex catsuit.

Maybe not even then. It's hard to blackmail people in the Photoshop era.

Could he ask the Secret Service agents who still protect him to shoot the process server when he shows up with the subpoena?

He could ask.

No, the only way Mr. Cheney can avoid answering questions about the CIA interrogations is to seek cover under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "No person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," the framers wrote.

They weren't big fans of torture.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the 2007 posts, "Dick Cheney's impeachable offense" and "The trouble with waterboarding."

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Tabloid update: Political marriages on the rocks!

This week's National Enquirer features a full-page story of scintillating quotes from the Washington Post, the Raleigh News & Observer, CNN, the Baltimore Sun and Salon.com.

"Right every step of the way," said the Post's Howard Kurtz. "The leader on this story from the beginning," said Salon.com. "The National Enquirer has earned credibility on this story," said the Baltimore Sun.

The story, as you must know by now, is that former U.S. Senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards had an affair with a campaign videographer, or had an affair with a woman he later hired as a campaign videographer, and fathered her 18-month-old baby daughter.

This week's Enquirer reports that the former senator has decided to move his new daughter and her mother closer to the house he shares with his wife Elizabeth and their kids, or formerly shared with his wife Elizabeth and their kids.

"That's when Elizabeth exploded!" the Enquirer's source reports. "In a fit of rage, she grabbed a suitcase and started packing her things."

The Enquirer says Mrs. Edwards quickly decided that she shouldn't be the one to leave. According to the tabloid's source, "Elizabeth told John to get out, yelling, 'You're on your own with this! I've been humiliated enough!'"

Mrs. Edwards has a gift for understatement.

Despite the Enquirer's very credible reporting of a marital split, John and Elizabeth Edwards arrived together at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston Friday night for a memorial honoring Senator Ted Kennedy.

"I thought it was a lovely celebration," Mrs. Edwards told a reporter afterwards, "but as spectacular as this evening is it is impossible to capture the man, though. Our hearts are really with Vicki and their family."

Our hearts. She's still speaking in the marital plural.

Meanwhile, the senator from the Westminster Kennel Club was chatting up senior presidential adviser David Axelrod, who used to work for him back when he was a candidate in 2004.

"Edwards seemed to do most of the talking," observed Glenn Thrush, a reporter for Politico, which is a mainstream media outfit but don't hold that against them. Mr. Axelrod "seemed to be doing most of the consoling, patting Edwards' back and smiling as the former senator and '04 vice presidential candidate spoke expressively."

So he's looking for a gig.

As America Wants To Know wrote a year ago, Senator Edwards is out of business. There's no reason for corporations to donate to his self-serving Foundation for Bringing Wonderfulness to the Under-Wonderful if he's never going to be in a position to do anything for them. Or to them.

Elizabeth Edwards, once touted as a likely appointee in any Democratic administration, is out of business, too. Her decision to keep quiet about her husband's skirt-chasing so he could chase the 2008 Democratic nomination, putting the party at risk of an explosive sex scandal down the road, was not appreciated in Democratic circles. Last weekend she opened a little furniture store in Chapel Hill. Her husband was seen moving furniture for her.

"As a man who slept on all those couches, he can tell the customers personally which ones are the most comfortable," comedian Argus Hamilton observed.

Speaking of the couch, the Globe reports this week that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's husband Todd is currently sleeping there. "Sarah Palin Divorce Deal!" the tabloid headline screams, "World Exclusive Breaking News!"

Inside, "insiders tell GLOBE the sexy Republican's 21-year marriage to her high school sweetheart is in tatters over cheating charges, lies, jealousy and her soaring political ambitions."

Sarah took off her wedding ring a couple of weeks ago and threw it into a lake, the tabloid was told.

There's no place for sentiment in politics.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier post, "Tabloid update: Cover-ups!"

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Obama meets the death panel

The bad news came from Richard Moore, investigative reporter for the Lakeland Times in Minocqua, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, August 25, 2009.

"U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold told a large crowd gathered for a listening session in Iron County last week there would likely be no health care bill before the end of the year - and perhaps not at all," he wrote.

And then, the news got worse.

"It was an assessment Feingold said he didn't like, but the prospect of no health care legislation brought a burst of applause from a packed house of nearly 150 citizens at the Mercer Community Center," Mr. Moore reported.

This is why socialists don't encourage free assembly or speech. All you hear is bad news.

But the worst news was yet to come.

"There's a survey that shows that I am the Democrat who has least voted with President Obama," Senator Feingold bragged.

This is why socialists cancel elections.


Copyright 2009

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Good, evil and Roger Goodell

Today in the Miami Herald, Dan Le Batard has an op-ed complaining about the "bullying zeal" of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. He unloaded on Goodell after the commissioner suspended Cleveland Browns receiver Donte' Stallworth for a full season following his 24-day jail sentence for a horrible drunk driving accident that killed a pedestrian.

Le Batard thinks Goodell is acting like a dictator, issuing arbitrary rulings. "Fidel Goodell can continue to trample employees without anyone pushing back," he wrote, "But I don't know if what he's doing is more good than evil. I just know that it is popular and easy and doesn't appear to be working."

The commissioner's tough suspension policy "hasn't done much of anything to curb arrest numbers," Le Batard wrote. "More than 60 players have been arrested each of the past two years. That's about the annual average (more than 450 players have been arrested since 2000)."

There's an error in this argument, and it's the assumption that the commissioner's policy is intended to reduce arrests.

The commissioner's policy is intended to protect sponsors. It's intended to prevent Mothers Against Drunk Drivers from staging noisy protests that make beer companies uncomfortable about having their trademarks in the picture with NFL players. It's intended to keep car advertising a year away from the mental image of a fatal car wreck.

Roger Goodell has a tricky job. He has to calibrate the NFL's image just right: edgy enough to sell products to the 18-34 male demographic, but not so edgy that their mothers organize a boycott of league advertisers.

The NFL pays the commissioner $11 million a year to figure out how long Donte' Stallworth and Michael Vick and Plaxico Burress and Jared Allen have to be suspended before the public will say, "Well.... I guess anybody can make a mistake."

It's a little longer for killing dogs and pedestrians than for gunfights and DUIs. Shooting and drinking poll pretty well.

Dan Le Batard criticizes the NFL players' union for inadequately protecting the players from the commissioner's apparently arbitrary rulings. "This issue is something union insiders predict might result in a work stoppage when the next contract is negotiated," he wrote.

But the players don't have to go on strike to achieve a more reasonable league policy on suspensions. All they have to do is help the league out by giving the sponsors a little bit of cover. Players who get into legal trouble should try to look remorseful and do publicly visible charity work. It doesn't have to be heartfelt. It just has to sell.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier post, "Tackling the NFL."

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Henry Waxman's optional Constitution

Suppose you were trying to write a Constitution that protected freedom in America. You'd probably want to make sure the government didn't have the power to restrict freedom of speech. And you'd probably want to make sure the government didn't have the power to conduct fishing expeditions through the papers and personal records of unpopular people or anyone else who fell out of favor with the government officials in power at the moment.

You might write something like this:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

By coincidence, or maybe not by coincidence, the First Congress wrote that, and it became the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

On Monday Rep. Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter to 52 insurance companies demanding documents for an investigation into "compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry."

"For each year from 2003 to 2008," the letter requests "a table identifying each employee or officer who was compensated more than $500,000 in any one of those years, and listing the individual's principal position, the total value of compensation the individual received in each year, and the annual value of each of the following components of the individual's compensation:

(a) salary;
(b) bonus;
(c) grant date fair value of stock and option awards;
(d) the realized value of all sales of stock and exercised options;
(e) non-equity incentive plan compensation;
(f) change in pension value and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings, and
(g) all other compensation, including perquisites

The letter also "requests" a table identifying all board members and all compensation for each board member for each year from 2003 to 2008.

In addition, Chairman Waxman wants to see "a table listing all conferences, retreats or other events held outside company facilities" for the last three years, with documentation explaining "the purpose of such events" and "all expenses incurred, including transportation, lodging, food, entertainment, or gifts."

Then he wants to see, "for each year from 2003 to 2008," documentation of total revenues, net income, and total dividend payments.

He also "requested" all documents "provided, reviewed, prepared, or produced by or for the board by a compensation committee or compensation consultants."

And, of course, no examination would be complete without a table listing, "for each year from 2005 to 2008," premium revenue, claims payments, sales and administrative expenses, and profits. Chairman Waxman asked the insurance companies to break out the data separately for the self-insured employer market segment, the insured employer market segment, and the individual market segment, as well as for Medicare, Medicaid, and other government health programs.

Henry Waxman wants all of this by September 14 and some of it by September 4, and we can expect Capitol Hill hearings grilling the insurance executives just as soon as his overworked staffers find the time to edit the documents into a remake of Les Miserables and build a guillotine.

Who was it who said tyranny is when the people are afraid of the government, and freedom is when the government is afraid of the people?

It wasn't Henry Waxman.

Speaking of being afraid of the people, Henry Waxman is ducking his constituents this month. America Wants to Know happens to live in his district, and we called the district office today to complain about this McCarthyite abuse of power and also to ask if there will be a public forum or town hall meeting where constituents can ask Congressman Waxman questions like, "By what authority do you demand to see the confidential financial records of private individuals and companies that have committed no crime and are not even federally regulated?"

"Um," the staffer in the district office said nervously, "he's doing a forum on Friday but it's on climate change."

Where on Friday?

"Um... (long pause), it's at UCLA."

What time?

"Um... (long pause), it's at 10:00 a.m. But all the tickets are gone already."

Any town hall meetings on health care reform? Any other public appearances?

"No. Would you like to talk to the committee staff? The number is 202-225-2927."

The interesting thing about Congressman Waxman ducking any contact with his constituents is that this is a district so blue it looks like it's been asphyxiated. This is one of those Hollywood blue districts, the kind they make fun of during Republican fund-raising events.

If a Democratic congressman is ducking the public here, the Democrats are in worse shape than they were in 1994.

That's when President Clinton barnstormed the country campaigning for Democrats, telling everyone who would listen that he had to have more Democrats in the House and Senate or we'd never get health care reform passed.

In the 1994 election, the Democrats lost their majorities in both the House and the Senate.

Who was it who said those who forget history are doomed to repeat it?

It wasn't Henry Waxman.

Here's some free advice for the insurance companies. Stand up to the bullying and tell the public about every law, court ruling and regulation that makes health insurance coverage more expensive and less available. Don't make the mistake of being nice to the alligator in the hope that it will eat you last.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the previous posts, "Insanity," "Gazing into the future," and "Yes we can and no we won't."

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Obama's rage

How angry is President Obama that his health care reform effort has been sunk by angry Americans at town hall meetings?

How angry would he have to be to take a shot at them in the middle of a tribute to a World War II hero?

That's what he did today in Phoenix. President Obama was wrapping up his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars by telling the story of Jim Norene of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne when he said this:

"For his bravery, Jim was awarded the Bronze Star. But like so many others, he rarely spoke of what he did or what he saw—reminding us that true love of country is not boisterous or loud but, rather, the "'tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.'"

Boisterous? Loud? You can bet he's not talking about patriotic Germans singing in Berlin beer gardens.

No, the president was talking about Americans who have been yelling at their elected officials, people who are trying to get through to their representatives before they go back to Washington and vote on another thousand-page bill that they haven't read.

The president is losing his cool.

The news he's getting from his pollsters must be even worse than what we've seen in public.


Copyright 2009

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GM's Hollywood accounting

On the day General Motors emerged from bankruptcy with the U.S. government as its new owner, GM vice chairman Bob Lutz emerged from meetings with the Obama administration's auto task force to speak with reporters. He said he had been pleasantly surprised to find the government so cooperative. He said the company would still be making Camaros, Corvettes, and full-size pickup trucks. He had a twinkle in his eye.

Last week we found out what he was twinkling about.

This is what Bob Lutz told Fox News' Jennifer Griffin on July 10:

I was afraid that we would get under a lot of pressure from the government, because that's what everyone was saying. The government is going to make you do nothing but green cars. And my worry initially was if they do that, they are going to make us produce vehicles that the American public does not really want to buy.

Happily, as I got to know the members of the task force, I realized they had one overriding objective only, and that is to make General Motors into a streamlined, successful company.

And they absolutely want us to keep producing Camaros, keep producing Corvettes, keep producing full-size pickup trucks, keep producing sport-utilities, and so forth, provided, and this applies to every other car company, we have to meet the future fuel economy regulations.

So as long as we have the technology in the vehicles that meet the fuel economy regulations, the U.S. government absolutely wants us to keep fulfilling the needs and desires of the American public because they realize this is the only way we are going to be successful, and it's the only way the taxpayer is going to get her money back.

On Tuesday, GM announced that the Chevy Volt will get 230 miles per gallon.

This is pretty.

If you were wondering why GM thinks anyone would pay almost $40,000 for a car that's designed to drive forty miles and then sit in a garage for eight hours with a plug in its side, here's your answer:

They don't.

That's why they're not terribly concerned that the battery for the Chevy Volt isn't even ready yet. The car isn't designed to be driven. It's designed to be averaged.

In 1975 Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which created a giant regulatory stick known as CAFE standards. CAFE is an acronym for "corporate average fuel economy."

Under the law, new passenger cars beginning with the 1978 model year had to meet a government-mandated fuel economy standard, but the rule did not apply to each individual model. It was the average fuel economy of all the company's new passenger cars that mattered.

Since trucks didn't have to meet the same standard, it wasn't long before passenger car sales were seriously dented by the surging sales of light trucks and the sport-utility vehicles that fell into the same government category.

(The boom in SUVs wasn't the only unintended consequence of CAFE standards. As cars were made lighter, the death toll on the nation's roads went up. Heavier cars get lower mileage, but they're safer in a crash.)

The CAFE standards forced car companies to build high-mileage cars, even if company executives believed they wouldn't sell, just to offset the lower mileage of the cars that were selling.

This is a part of the auto industry story that has gone mostly unreported. While Democrats blame the industry's decline on auto executives and Republicans blame it on union contracts, hardly anyone blames the government regulations that forced the carmakers to make bad business decisions for thirty years.

The Congressional Research Service released a report about CAFE standards in 2002 that reads like the medical chart of a patient who's not going to make it. Every couple of years the House or Senate would throw the industry into uncertainty by threatening to change the CAFE standards on cars or light trucks. Here's one example:

There are sharp differences in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standard (CAFE) provisions between the House and Senate versions of comprehensive energy legislation, H. R. 4. The House bill, passed on August 1, 2001, includes a provision calling for a reduction of 5 billion gallons in light-duty truck fuel consumption over the period of model years (MYs) 2004-2010. The provision would also require National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to develop a weight-based system for establishing fuel-efficiency standards. The Senate began debate on comprehensive energy legislation at the end of February 2002. Senators Kerry and McCain reached a compromise to propose a combined fleetwide average of 36 mpg by MY2015. However, on March 13, 2002, the Senate voted (62-38) for an amendment offered by Senators Levin and Bond to charge NHTSA with development of new CAFE standards. The Senate went on to approve an amendment (56-44) from Senator Miller to freeze "pickup trucks" (to be defined by the Secretary of Transportation) at the current light truck standard of 20.7 mpg. This language was in the final version of the Senate energy bill when it passed April 25, 2002 (88-11). On September 19, the conferees agreed to the House-passed goal of achieving 5 billion gallons, but shifted the window to MY2006-MY2012.

We will probably never know how many business decisions -- to locate a factory in this state or that one, to keep a factory open or close it, to fight the United Auto Workers' demands or give in to them -- were influenced by the desire to pick up a few key votes in the House or not lose one in the Senate.

America Wants To Know believes that the government has no business regulating fuel economy in privately owned vehicles, and that the U.S. auto industry would be healthy today if automakers had stood up to the government in 1975 and told lawmakers they'll close the doors and fire everybody before they'll spend the next thirty years on their knees to government regulators pleading for permission to average one mile per gallon less than last year.

But now we have the next best thing, which is the government hilariously in the position of trying to make General Motors profitable.

Yes, the heavenly light pours from the sky and we witness a miracle: government bureaucrats on their knees to the power and the glory of horsepower.

To the surprise of Bob Lutz and everybody else in the car business, the Obama adminstration's auto task force wants General Motors to sell just as many Camaros, Corvettes and full-size pickups as they possibly can.

Of course, there's still the pesky problem of those government-mandated Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. Camaros, Corvettes and full-size pickups really pull down the average mileage of the fleet.

Not to worry. As the Detroit Free Press pointed out today in its Inside Autos column, "It's difficult to assess miles per gallon in a vehicle that may not be powered by a fuel that's measured in gallons."

In other words, a car that sits in the garage with a plug in its side can be said to have whatever mileage you'd like it to have.

GM says the Chevy Volt gets 230 miles per gallon.

Don't expect the government to take them to court over it. Now that they're in the car business, they just want to sell cars.

General Motors won't get special treatment from regulators. As Bob Lutz said, GM has to meet the fuel economy regulations, "and this applies to every other car company."

Nissan says its upcoming electric Leaf gets 367 miles per gallon.

Mel Brooks couldn't have written this.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier post, "The fabulous, fictional Chevrolet Volt."

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The big half-truth

President Obama held a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado, today and repeated that under his health care reform plan, insurance companies will not be allowed to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or charge them higher rates than other customers.

For just a moment, pretend you are the CEO of a health insurance company.

How long do you suppose you could stay in business if people had the right -- guaranteed by law -- to buy a health insurance policy only after they got sick, and for the same rate that you charge people who are not sick?

Can you buy a fire insurance policy after the house burns down? Can you buy car insurance to pay for collision damage that has already happened?

No, you can't.

And that's the part of the health care reform proposal that President Obama isn't telling you. In order to prevent companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, everyone will be required by law to buy health insurance and keep it in force continuously.

Actually, he is telling you, but it's not the first thing he mentions, or the second. It's pretty far down in the small print. In Grand Junction on Saturday, it was one hour and three minutes into a town hall meeting that ran one hour and ten minutes:

"If we don't have everybody covered," President Obama told the audience, "we can't construct a system that prevents insurance companies from discriminating against pre-existing conditions. I hope everybody understands that. We can't tell insurers to take everybody if, on the other hand, you've got a whole bunch of people who are healthy and young and choose not to get insurance at all. Because what ends up happening is then insurance companies are just going to take the people when they get sick. Somebody won't buy insurance until they find out that they're sick, then they go into the insurance office and say 'give me insurance, so I can go pay my bill,' an insurance company would lose money pretty quick that way. So if we're going to eliminate the pre-existing conditions problem, we've got to also have the coverage problem, and that's why this is going to have to be phased in over a number of years."

He's only owned General Motors for a month and already he's a car salesman.


Copyright 2009

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The fall guy of the fall

Is somebody setting up Rahm Emanuel to take the blame for the failures of the Obama adminstration to pass health care reform and climate legislation?

Today's New York Times says "Mr. Emanuel is emerging as perhaps the most influential White House chief of staff in a generation." And then reporters Peter Baker and Jeff Zeleny write this:

"As the principal author of Mr. Obama’s do-everything-at-once strategy, he stands to become a figure of consequence in his own right if the administration stabilizes the economy and financial markets, overhauls the health care system and winds down one war while successfully prosecuting another."

Now, here's the question: Who described Rahm Emanuel as "the principal author of Mr. Obama's do-everything-at-once strategy?"

There's an unmistakably negative tone to the phrase "do-everything-at-once." It sounds like someone who talked to the reporters was conveying the view that it was an error. Otherwise the phrase might have been something like "pursuing a bold agenda."

But the real tip-off is the characterization of Mr. Emanuel as the "principal author" of the strategy. It's just not plausible that anyone made the decision to pursue that strategy except the president himself.

Maybe they're splitting hairs, and trying to convey the impression that the president set the goal and Mr. Emanuel created the game plan.

But that just reinforces the impression that Mr. Emanuel is, to quote an old joke, "on the roof and we can't get him down."

Health care reform is on the roof with Mr. Emanuel (e-mail me at Susan@ExtremeInk.com if you want to hear the rest of that joke), and it's a safe bet that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will make every effort to avoid the blame for its demise.

So the Democrats on the ballot in 2010 will need somebody to blame. The special interests? The Republicans? Not good enough. President Obama's efforts to get the interest groups on board created too many photos of the suspects looking cooperative and helpful, and the Republicans don't have enough votes to block a sidewalk.

Speaking of suspects, the New York Times story reads like a chapter in an Agatha Christie novel:

Mr. Emanuel presides over a White House where people are defined by whether they went through the fires of the campaign. He did not. When Mr. Obama invited longtime aides like Mr. Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, to Camp David recently, Mr. Emanuel was not included.

He gets along well with most other members of the Obama team, including Mr. Axelrod, a longtime Chicago friend who served as a witness at his wedding. But as a head-knocking addition to the tightly knit "no drama Obama" world, Mr. Emanuel has almost inevitably been in the midst of some tensions. Mr. Emanuel was wary of Valerie Jarrett, the president’s close friend, joining the White House staff. In the intervening months, the two "have spent a lot of time working at that" relationship and "get along well now," Mr. Podesta said.

So the murderer is still a mystery, but the body has been positively identified.

Rahm Emanuel could be out by Christmas.


Copyright 2009

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Porn's Great Depression

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the pornography industry, centered in the suburban San Fernando Valley area of L.A., is in a financial tailspin.

The fees for female performers are sliding. Caroline Pierce told the paper that production companies are pressuring her to do two scenes for $1,200 instead of one scene for $800. Savannah Stern said her income has dropped so sharply that she's thinking of going into real estate development. Recently she was hired to walk around at a party for seven hours wearing nothing but a feather boa and was paid just $300. Where's the SEIU when you need them.

"Industry insiders estimate that since 2007, revenue for most adult production and distribution companies has declined 30% to 50%," the Times reported, "and the number of new films made has fallen sharply."

The culprit, if you haven't guessed, is the Internet. DVD sales have dropped like a stone now that people can get free porn online.

"Sites like Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube attract more users than TMZ and the Huffington Post," the Times reports helpfully.

Vivid Entertainment co-chairman Bill Asher said his company's revenue is off an estimated 20% this year. "We always said that once the Internet took off, we'd be OK," he told the Times, and then he said what has to be the funniest thing a porn producer has ever said:

"It never crossed our minds that we'd be competing with people who just give it away for free."


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "Howard Stern and the big secret" and "105-year-old Internet porn."

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The right to kill health care reform

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers told a National Press Club luncheon last month that he plans to propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to declare that health care is "a right" in America. He said it would answer the "fundamental question, 'Is health care a constitutional right?'"

"I mean, do you have a right to health care in the American system of government or not?" he asked. "Well, we believe that people do and we're introducing a constitutional amendment just to make it real clear so that you don't have to infer or assume that that's a given and all that."

Sounds like the Democrats have been having some interesting conversations behind closed doors.

Chairman Conyers wouldn't be trying to amend the Constitution unless someone had pointed out to him that nobody in America has the right to have their health care bills paid by somebody else.

Health care isn't a right. Free speech is a right.

This explains why the Democrats are so frustrated by the angry protests at town hall meetings across the country, where free speech threatens to sink their plans for free health care.

On Thursday, Senate Democrats were at the White House listening to senior adviser David Axelrod and deputy chief of staff Jim Messina tell them how to handle their constituents at town hall meetings during the August recess. The advisers, who have never run for office, told the senators to prepare thoroughly, explain how health care reform will benefit people who currently have insurance, and "punch back twice as hard" if they get hit with criticism.

It's easy to imagine the senators, who have run for office, sitting around the table with their true thoughts concealed behind their professional 'yes-I'm-listening' faces. Here's what they're thinking:

"Do you know who I am?"

The official administration talking point, voiced by the White House, the Democratic National Committee, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid, is that the protests are phony, ginned up by lobbyists for the insurance industry and the Republicans who are said to be in their pocket.

But the people who have had their names on a ballot know better. They've seen the mail and they've seen the polls. They can read, they can count, and they can tell the difference between a busload of paid demonstrators and a roomful of angry voters.

So why are they playing along with this strategy of dissing the protesters? Why are they insulting people who are standing in the hot sun outside a congressman's office, some of them leaning on walkers and some of them carrying picket signs, waiting to express their outrage over the health care reform bills that have been passed by the House committees?

In order to understand the strategy, you have to think like a political operative. The object of the game is to win, and winning is defined as getting a bill passed. It counts as a win even if it passes each committee by one vote, even if it passes each house by one vote, even if it gets out of conference by one vote, even if it has to be amended at three o'clock in the morning and strong-armed through the House and Senate with the "reconciliation" tactic that requires 51 votes in the Senate instead of 60.

In this mindset, the goal is to identify the individual lawmakers who can be pressured, cajoled, bribed or forced to vote yes.

So the point of telling everyone that the protests are phony is to convince those few key lawmakers that they should not be intimidated by the throngs of angry people jeering at them. The nasty, Nazi-invoking, sarcastic tone of the comments about the protests helps convey the message that no sophisticated person takes these boors seriously, and a responsible lawmaker will ignore them and vote with President Obama.

America Wants To Know doesn't think it will work. People who get elected to the House and Senate are very good at what they do. And what they do is get elected.

As an example, read this e-mail from Senator Dianne Feinstein, which was sent to us two months after we wrote asking her to please read the health care bill before voting on it, instead of going along with the kind of rush that was used to pass the October bailout, the stimulus bill, or the House cap-and-trade legislation (by the way, we never said anything about opposing "a public healthcare option"):

From: senator@feinstein.senate.gov
To: susan@extremeink.com
Subject: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein responding to your message
Date: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 3:30 pm

Dear Ms. Shelley:

Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to a public healthcare option in healthcare reform legislation. I am pleased that you took the time to write to me on an important issue facing our country, and I welcome this opportunity to explain my views.

I support reforming our healthcare system. The key is to find a healthcare plan that provides coverage, as well as limits cost. My colleagues in the Senate and I have been working on this, but it is a difficult issue and must be carefully thought out. I hope that the Senate Finance Committee will propose a bill which will lay out a way in which we can accomplish these goals and can be effectively merged with the bill passed by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Other health reforms are also necessary. I strongly believe that any healthcare reform legislation should prohibit coverage denial based on preexisting conditions. Reducing healthcare costs is absolutely essential. Between 2000 and 2007, combined profits for 10 of the country's largest publically traded insurance companies rose 428 percent. I am concerned about the astronomical growth of entitlement spending, which makes up 56 percent of all federal dollars spent in 2009. Health reform must bend the healthcare cost curve, slowing the growth of entitlements in order to reduce our nation's debt and budget deficit.

Any Senate health reform bill must improve California's complex health care system, and please know that I am working hard with my colleagues to make health care affordable for all Americans, without adding to the federal deficit.

Again, thank you for writing. If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

Now, that is how a successful politician answers the mail. She's strongly in favor of puppies and kittens and firmly against bad things happening to people. She's "concerned" and she's "working hard" and she wants "to make health care affordable for all Americans, without adding to the federal deficit."

How's she going to vote on the comprehensive health care reform bill?

There isn't going to be a comprehensive health care reform bill.

The skilled politicians who have survived a thousand political battles to arrive on Capitol Hill are not going to let a rookie president end their careers. The only question now is whether they'll tell him in private or we'll all get to watch it play out in public.

Buy some popcorn and Sno-Caps. This could be the blockbuster of the summer.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "Gazing into the future" and "Yes we can and no we won't" and "Tom Daschle: Done."

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The mystery of Current TV

Is Current TV a front for a lobbying operation?

There's something very strange about it.

According to its web site, Current TV is "a new breed of cross-platform media company that works with its young adult audience to create and distribute content that informs, enriches and inspires."

"We believe media should be a two-way conversation and our fully integrated broadcast and online platforms make that possible," the web site says. "Current TV and Current.com work together to connect young adults with what's going on in their world through a unique blend of citizen journalism and viewer participation, offering programming and content that's authentic, often surprising and consistently compelling."

If you want to be surprising and compelling, you can't do much better than sending two California girls to the border between China and North Korea for no good reason. It sure was surprising when they wandered into North Korea and ended up sentenced to twelve years of hard labor, and it certainly was compelling when Bill Clinton had to fly to Pyongyang and sit through a three-hour meeting and photo shoot with Kim Jong-Il to get them out of there.

A couple of years ago, America Wants To Know wrote about an education software business run by Neil Bush, brother of then-President George W. Bush. Ignite! Learning's investors included his parents, George and Barbara Bush, and an assortment of interesting characters including Kuwaiti businessman Mohammed Al Saddah, Chinese computer company executive Winston Wong, and Russian fugitive business tycoon Boris A. Berezovsky.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times and others, Neil Bush was able to persuade various companies and foundations to make large cash donations to local school districts, on the condition that the funds be used to purchase Ignite! Learning's education software.

Some of the companies that were inspired to donate included Aramco Services Co. (a division of Saudi Arabia's government-owned oil company), Apache Corp., BP and Shell Oil.

A cynic might think the Bush family had set itself up with a cozy little laundering operation so they could be compensated for their consulting services without having to comply with those awful laws about registering as a foreign lobbyist.

And a cynic might think that Current TV makes no sense at all unless it's a front that allows Al Gore to transact all kinds of business with all kinds of governments while pretending that its only business is "journalism."

That is cynical.

Did you know that when Laura Ling stood on the tarmac at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank and thanked everyone for working so hard to bring her home, she thanked Dow Chemical and its chairman, Andrew Liveris?

"The connection between the chemical company and the Current TV journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, was not readily apparent," Associated Press writers Pamela Hess and Sharon Theimer reported Wednesday.

Mr. Liveris released a statement saying "Dow is appreciative of the opportunity to provide assistance in support of the release of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee, by providing aircraft support. The Dow plane was used in different parts of the mission in recent days."

Dow's press release includes a little bit of information about the company. It has 150 manufacturing sites in 35 countries.

Perhaps a global company that needs good relations with governments in 35 countries finds Al Gore's Rolodex to be a valuable thing.

Perhaps Al Gore has found a nifty way to take money and do favors without anybody knowing exactly what he's getting or what he's doing.

If the Bush family is doing the same thing, even people who know aren't going to say a word about it.

It's the perfect crime.

The only thing is, those two California girls who stumbled or were lured across the border into North Korea required a rescue that makes a James Bond movie opening look understated. Now the brutal North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il has photos and video of himself looking like the equal of a former president of the United States, hostage-takers the world over have a playbook for getting their phone calls returned by the State Department, and the effort to isolate North Korea and halt its nuclear ambitions has been made to look like a deadly practical joke.

Other than that, it went very well.

Be sure to tune in to Current TV, if you can find it, for more of their "content that informs, enriches and inspires." Thank goodness for the "new breed of cross-platform media company." Bill Clinton would be so bored just doing crossword puzzles.


Copyright 2009

Update on 8-6-09: The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler reports that it's Bill Clinton's Rolodex that Dow Chemical covets. Read about it here.

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How to fight socialism

Here are two questions to ask and answer:

Is need a license to take?

Why is everyone morally entitled to the money except the people who earned it?



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Editor's note: You might be interested in the 2007 post, "Barack Obama explains socialism," and the 2008 post, "Barack Obama: 'We don't mind...'"

Living in "Atlas Shrugged"

One day we can all tell our grandchildren that we remember a time when Atlas Shrugged was fiction.

On Saturday, U.S. President Barack Obama gave a weekly radio address that could have been given by any one of Ayn Rand's villainous bureaucrats:

"Innovation has been essential to our prosperity in the past, and it will be essential to our prosperity in the future. But it is only by building a new foundation that we will once again harness that incredible generative capacity of the American people. All it takes are the policies to tap that potential – to ignite that spark of creativity and ingenuity – which has always been at the heart of who we are and how we succeed. At a time when folks are experiencing real hardship, after years in which we have seen so many fail to take responsibility for our collective future, it’s important to keep our eyes fixed on that horizon."

Let's look closely at this.

"Innovation has been essential to our prosperity in the past, and it will be essential to our prosperity in the future." President Obama acknowledges that America has been prosperous in the past. He does not acknowledge the conditions that made innovation and prosperity possible.

"But it is only by building a new foundation that we will once again harness that incredible generative capacity of the American people." The president is saying that whatever worked in the past can't work in the future. "Only" by doing something completely different, "building a new foundation," can the creative work of the American people be harnessed. Memo to the president: horses work in harness; people work in freedom.

"All it takes are the policies to tap that potential – to ignite that spark of creativity and ingenuity – which has always been at the heart of who we are and how we succeed." By this the president apparently means "policies" that reward some kinds of enterprise and punish others. Solar panels get a subsidy. Oil refineries pay a carbon fee. A thousand new tax rules will penalize certain kinds of conduct, or people, and reward others. Don't forget to tip your congressman.

"At a time when folks are experiencing real hardship, after years in which we have seen so many fail to take responsibility for our collective future, it’s important to keep our eyes fixed on that horizon." The president would like you to believe that everything bad in the economy is the fault of selfish, evil, private businesses that were motivated by profit, while everything good is the result of government spending. He knows you're angry. He'd like to direct your anger away from Pennsylvania Avenue.

It's sad and almost comic. The campaign that sold hope has delivered stale, foolish, warmed-over socialism. "All it takes are the policies" is another way of saying government should influence all economic decisions to make sure "our collective future" turns out right. But government doesn't make smart economic decisions, it makes politically-influenced decisions. It makes decisions by looking at electoral maps and opinion polls, by reviewing and soliciting campaign contributions, and by relying on ideological convictions that may or may not line up with the facts.

Evidence that government is not competent to make complex economic decisions can be found in the burlesque failures of the program to help homeowners facing foreclosure and the ludicrous cash-for-clunkers program, but even if you believe the government can miraculously become capable, there is a larger question.

What happens to your freedom when the government micromanages the economy?

Should you have to wake up every day wondering if your industry or business has been targeted for destruction in the name of "our collective future?"

What happens to the economy, and the country, when every business decision has to please the government?

It's all in Atlas Shrugged, if you care to read it.

Or you could just watch it live. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters "The glory days are coming to an end for the health insurance industry in our country," and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank threatened banks with punitive legislation unless he sees a "significant increase" in mortgage modifications.

It's not going to take long, at this rate. Watching it live might be faster than reading the book.


Copyright 2009

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Tabloid update: Obama's gay lover! Kate's cocaine scandal!

America Wants to Know knows what you're thinking. "Doesn't she have to go to the grocery store yet?"

Thank you for your patience, your tabloid update is here.

"Revealed! Michelle's fury!" the Globe shouted last week, "Incredible charge: Obama's gay lover works in White House!"

You know it's not going to be much of a story when even the Globe thinks it's not credible.

"According to an incredible Internet charge," the Globe says, President Obama's gay lover is his "body man," Reggie Love.

That's really his title, "body man." He's the guy who carries the Nicorette gum and holds the suit coat while the president works the rope line and reads the Teleprompter.

Anyway, the Globe says Reggie Love (don't look at us, that's really his name) is paid $112,500 a year by the taxpayers to attend to the president's every need.

There's no "insiders reveal" sourcing for this story, the Globe just cited an unnamed blog and some anonymous people who posted comments on it.

And that's it. That's all they had, and it filled two pages that could have been devoted to something genuinely entertaining, like tidbits® puzzles.

This week's Globe, however, is much better. "Breaking news!" the cover announces. "William's bride caught in cocaine scandal! Camilla storms: Cancel royal wedding!"

It seems that just as Prince William's longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton was being "groomed for the throne" with a rare and significant invitation to lunch alone with Queen Elizabeth on August 31, those pesky tabloid reporters at London's News of the World dropped in on Kate's Uncle Gary.

Forty-four-year-old Gary Goldsmith is described as a multimillionaire property developer, and also as a "pot-smoking, cocaine-dealing womanizer who consorts with pimps, drug dealers and lap dancers whle living a playboy lifestyle on the sunny Spanish island of Ibiza."

The Globe says Uncle Gary rooms with a 26-year-old former lap-dancer named Antonia in a four-bedroom villa he calls "Maison de Bang Bang, meaning house of sex."

Those Rosetta Stone disks the Globe bought were certainly a worthwhile investment.

The News of the World reporters pretended to be businessmen, and they say Uncle Gary offered to have cocaine delivered to their door and also tried to set them up with $1,000-a-night Brazilian prostitutes. "You need me as a friend," they say Uncle Gary told them as he stood shirtless in his kitchen, cutting lines of cocaine on the tabletop (they took pictures). He also reportedly bragged that Prince William and niece Kate spent a week with him at the Bang Bang house last year and plan to visit again this summer.

The Globe says the former Camilla Parker-Bowles, now Duchess of Cornwall, is gleeful that commoner Kate is tangled up in this embarrassing scandal. "Scheming Camilla" reportedly views Kate as "the biggest threat to her own dream of one day becoming queen of England," and is telling anyone who will listen that the royal wedding "should be called off immediately!"

Now Kate's plans to marry Prince William "are hanging by a thread with Camilla doing everything she can to sabotage the marriage, sources say."

"Goldsmith is definitely fodder for scandal," the Globe reports. "Kate's mom Carole described her brother as 'unreliable and a waste of space' while another source says he's 'an accident waiting to happen.'"

Oh, no, not the tunnel again. So predictable.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: Catch up on your tabloid reading with "Obama gay cover-up", "Bush suicidal! McCain dying! Obama gay!" and "Bush! Cocaine! Clinton! Mistress!"

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