Posted by celticreeler on 06/18/11
Last updated 06/21/11

All eyes on Texas!

People of a "certain age" and older will remember the California table grape boycott in the late 60's, catapaulting Cesar Chavez to fame, in which the clarion call was "Boycott Grapes."  Search the Internet if you need background.

Godspeed to the courageous and principled American patriots in the Texas state legislature who are trying to pass a bill (H.B. 41, replacing H.B. 1937) in special session that would eliminate or at least encumber the intrusive, invasive, sexually assaultive, Fourth Amendment-violating "Enhanced Pat Downs" administered in lieu of the lurid "Advanced Imaging Technology" scans.  Some years ago as a practicing pediatrician, I called the hotline for suspected sexual abuse of a child when the very same treatment occured as that which goes on in the airport screening lines.  That is the simple truth--this sort of treatment was considered abusive and criminal.   As a law-abiding citizen, I consider this a colossal and intolerable affront.  I haven't flown commercial because of the threat of this treatment--opting instead to drive with my father on a 4,000 mile round trip last fall.  Flying would have saved us 8 days.  As a parent,  I will not permit my teenaged daughters to fly. 

Are they trying to curtail our movements?  Are they trying to bankrupt the commercial airlines?  Will there be nationalization of same when they succeed?  I wonder.

With this bill in Texas, the LINE IN THE SAND has finally been drawn--thanks be to God for these legislators in Texas!  Governor Perry must decide who he will answer to:  the citizens of his state and their elected representatives, or the federal government.  It is clear that many members of the public believe that this is what it comes down to for the Governor.  I concur.  Cut through all the hand-waving, the "what-if's", the far-flung projections.  It is simply a matter of who he must answer to.

The missing piece of this puzzle, however, is the AIRLINES who must listen to their customers and their shareholders when they collectively yell "ENOUGH."  Whatever the past history of favorable treatment or legislation has been--and the phrase "When you sleep with dogs, you get up with fleas" comes to mind--the airlines must stand up to the federal government and its edicts, which bring calamity for their profits and patronage.   Economic pressure was fine for the United Farm Workers.  It should be used in this situation.  It's time to BOYCOTT GROPES.

Posted by celticreeler on 06/12/11
Last updated 06/12/11

So you've read some Rothbard or von Mises and you think you know what money is, do you?  You think it's a medium of exchange?  A store of value?  Well, I have news for you!  Money is power!  With money, outcomes can be influenced.  Messages can be sent out via print media and over the air.  Messengers can be hired; their gas and travel expenses reimbursed; meeting rooms secured.  Electronic networks can be set up and maintained.  People can be controlled.  This also creates jobs, which can be a definite side benefit.

[Where are the window glaziers?  Bring in the window glaziers!  I said, bring...oh, never mind.]

Let me tell you the tale of the Missouri Foundation for Health, and you will understand one source of money with which to wield power.

In the early 1990's, the nonprofit Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Missouri (BC/BS MO) transferred a large part of its assets to a for-profit subsidiary, RightCHOICE Managed Care, Inc.  This ultimately resulted in Missouri's then-Attorney General (now Governor) Jay Nixon filing suit for violation of Missouri law for the conversion in 1996.  Ultimately under the jurisdiction of the Missouri Supreme Court a settlement was reached which penalized BC/BS MO.  The insurer was required to transfer about $13 million and 15 million shares of RightCHOICE (subsequently merged with Wellpoint Health Networks, rendering those shares more valuable) to a non-profit health advocacy foundation, which in 2000 became the Missouri Foundation for Health.

[Wait--isn't that money that the premium payers paid in?  After I learned about this, I thought of Rep. Joe Barton's (R-TX) comment about the funds demanded from BP after the Gulf Oil Spill:  "It's a shakedown!"  Goodness, how would we all survive without those fallible mega-corporations, goofing up and providing the seed capital for so much philanthropy?  Sorry, I'm getting "out in the weeds," as they say.  We now return you to our regularly scheduled program.]

Since my better half is the astute market watcher that he is, he checked on the post-merger stock price, and found that the $66 per share x 15 million shares did agree pretty well with the figure given--in a Wikipedia page with "multiple issues"--of about $900 million in value provided to MFH.  The MFH site contains a luxury, no, a plethora, no, a googleplex of details (which you absolutely, positively, must investigate for your region) about grants given; in 2006, $200 million had been given to date,  and this seems to agree well with $900 million in start-up cash.  

You can read more about the early history of MFH here.  

Come on, lady, get to the point.  Okay!  First, MFH sent two emissaries to Rolla about 3 weeks ago to do what I can best describe as "soften us up" for Obamacare.  The pitch was essentially, "Is it perfect?  No, but it's here, and we need to figure out what it means for Missouri."  About 2 dozen people were there, one of whom was an insurance salesman who was having none of it, and four of whom were physicians.  A retired surgeon politely but repeatedly said that it was simply unworkable.

[Pretty much everybody avoided their free food, too.]

Secondly, after being relegated to the back burner for several years, a push for a city-wide smoking ban resurfaced in Rolla last year; the proposed ordinance faltered due to some opposition by business owners (the only bowling alley permits smoking, as do multiple bars) and some disagreement among the city council members over the structure of the ordinance itself.  But like a zombie, it came back this spring.  Ads started appearing in the paper, and radio spots began.  Where was the funding coming from, I thought?  Well, an astute councilman asked in a meeting where the money came from, and the nice lady said, "From MFH."  I went to the MFH site, and learned that MFH had granted the local anti-smoking organization $60,789 under its Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Initiative program.  This is a lot of money in a town like Rolla in an economic downturn like the present one; it buys lots of newspaper ads, radio spots, logo-emblazoned polo shirts, and stickers.  For all I know it paid for the clipboard used in the student "poll" done at our middle school, which (!surprise!) showed overwhelming support among these nascent citizens for a smoking ban.  

[There was even a "pre-pubescent flash mob" at a city council meeting, 12 year olds finding their way into city council chambers to make their high, piping voices heard.  That was a meeting I actually missed--lucky for them, I would have probably spanked some of them for their insolence.  Did I mention I believe in spanking?  Sorry, now back to our story.] 

Am I stupid, a throw-back, a fossil, or does control of the property not follow ownership of the property?  Did they outlaw smoking when I wasn't paying attention?    Did Madison not say in Federalist #10 that protection of property was the first duty of government?

Why is MFH trying to control what happens in Rolla?  Are they trying to control what happens in YOUR town?

Posted 07/26/11 rollateaparty Rolla, MO

Thanks for spreading the word!

Posted by celticreeler on 05/24/11
Last updated 05/24/11

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 establishes a 60 day window for President-authorized military intervention in situations where the United States finds itself in immediate danger.  That is my one-sentence summary, anyway.  Seeing the 60 day interval as having expired in the case of our involvement in Libya, I asked my federal legislators yesterday in an email, "What is being done by Congress about the apparent violation of the War Powers Act [sic] of 1973 in the form of continued involvement of our military beyond 60 days in a conflict not immediately threatening to our country?"

Missouri Senator Roy Blunt's office sent a reply yesterday, saying in part: 

"Thank you for your letter on the situation in Libya. 

I support the rights of people everywhere to assemble peacefully and petition their government. In the case of Libya, the Gaddafi regime has proven to be the most violent and repressive in a region widely known for suppressing freedom. The United States should stand strongly behind the Libyan people as they claim their freedoms. 

While I believe military action was warranted against Gaddafi, it's increasingly clear that the President acted without clearly defined goals and without doing his constitutional duty to consult with Congress. The result is a muddled conflict with virtually no U.S. leadership and limited prospects for success.  If the United States was going to act in Libya, the President should have acted weeks before he did and done so using much clearer guiding principles and with a more clearly-defined strategy.

I recently cosponsored S. Res. 148 * which calls for Congress to fully authorize the action in Libya.  I believe that whenever the United States chooses to intervene militarily, it must do so with a clear understanding of the goals and costs of the mission and with the broadest possible support of the American people and their representatives in Congress."

Now, I have a question for those who support this bill:  Is it an attempt to put this intervention to a vote, or is it a detour around the conundrum of whether we should be intervening at all--in a domestic situation within the decision making domain of the sovereign citizens of Libya?  The resolution toward the end of the bill requires "(1) that the President should to submit to Congress (A) a detailed description of United States policy objectives in Libya, both during and after Moammar Qaddafy's rule, and (B) a detailed plan to obtain those objectives..." (emphasis added). 

There is something to be said for "putting things to a vote" of the individuals presumed to be representatives of the people who must pay for interventions with their blood and treasure.

The wording, however, certainly suggests to me that the U.S. has decided that not only must Colonel Qaddafy be deposed, but since vacancies in the head of state position cannot persist for long, that the U.S. will participate in the selection of his successor.  No doubt we will have numerous hall monitors sent over during their elections.  Is this proper?  Can the United States (with its apparently inexaustible stable of experts in everything) peer into its crystal ball and look into the future of the country of Libya?  Will we--not we, really, but those anointed few occupying the seats of power in our country--avoid unintended consequences?  Think of Hitler after punitive reparations payments and disastrous hyperinflation in Germany; the rise of the Ayatollah after the Shah in Iran; the corruption in Afghanistan; the situation in Viet Nam after the people of the South had been thoroughly depleted after the struggle there.  I just cannot see how we can possibly know what is right for the people of Libya.  Is the world so big that the resident population of Libya is unenlightened about freedom and representative government?  Are the people of Libya completely unable to advocate for themselves the form of government they want?  Surely a home-grown government would be better and far more legitimate than any imposed by the biggest bully in the sandbox.   How would we feel if the situation were reversed?

*The resolution contains a useful timeline of events in the Libyan conflict, and is "only" six pages long.

Posted by celticreeler on 05/16/11

Dear Senator _________,

The third annual Rolla Tea Party rally was held Saturday, April 16, 2011, at beautiful Lions Club Park on a blustery cold day.  Attendance was lower than in prior years due to the extreme weather, but 40 percent of the attendees signed this year's petition, requesting that you not sign up the federal debt limit. 

The "debt limit" is such tortured use of the English language, as there can really not be a limit or ceiling when there have been over 70 votes since 1940 alone to increase the statutory maximum allowed.  The current debt is over $45,000 per soul living in the country today, and much more per household, of course.  This debt will be laid on the backs of the U.S. taxpayers, in the form of taxes they pay or, worse, as monetized debt from the Federal Reserve, inflating the currency even further than at present.  This erodes the dollar even further, which hampers the ability of the people to provide for themselves.

Justice demands sound money. 

The patriots from Rolla Tea Party are pleading with you to arrest this process, by voting "no" on any increase in the debt limit.  Please do not wait for a promised amendment to the Constitution or any other contingency.  Do not heed the dire predictions of those who warn of default, since it is obvious by now that the federal government is no longer very credit worthy (except to itself).  I would cite three pieces of evidence:  S&P downgrading the outlook for U.S. Treasury securities, numerous reports from abroad of the U.S. dollar losing its position as a world reserve currency, and the simple fact that a nation that cannot pay its bills without borrowing more is already in de facto default.

Sincerely,

Posted by celticreeler on 05/08/11
Last updated 05/08/11

This letter appeared in our local paper, 4/23-24/11 issue.  Will it do any good?

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Dear Editor,

I think this is the most urgent issue I have ever written about.  Please allow me to encourage the readers of this newspaper to ask their federal legislators to vote "no" on increasing the federal debt limit.

What is the federal debt limit?  It is the statutory or legal limit, or ceiling, of the debt allowed to the federal government.  If the federal government needs to borrow more than this, the limit must be increased.  This is all a very tortured use of the English language, because there is no ceiling and no limit, really, considering that the federal legislators have increased the debt ceiling some 76 times since 1940.  Aside from a few times in "emergencies" when the government voted the limit up, only to vote it down soon after, this indebtedness has steadily risen.  What was $49 billion in 1940 has become $14.294 TRILLION today.  That's 14 followed by 12 zeros.  It comes to roughly $45,000 for every living person in the United States-and it is a debt that has been assumed for the citizenry, since the federal government creates no wealth on its own.  This money must be taken from the public in the form of taxes or printed out of thin air, inflating or decreasing the value of the currency in the possession of all.  There is absolutely no hope that such a sum will magically come from anywhere else, such as a tariff levied on a foreign import.

So much of the urgent spending is utterly irresponsible, beyond any oversight or accountability.  A snapshot is provided by some of the bailout documents released under court order, after two years, from the Federal Reserve Bank to Bloomberg LP:  The Bank of Bahrain got money, and passed it by the billions to the Central Bank of Libya, which will buy armaments to use against our country and our NATO partners; European central banks got money; the wives of J.P. Morgan executives got money to buy expensive town houses in Manhattan; need I go on?  (Details are readily available in the media.)  Why, I ask you, did the federal government essentially make the people of the United States co-signers of these "loans"?

Yesterday we learned that the much-hallowed "full faith and credit of the United States" may be in jeopardy:  a major credit-rating firm, Standard & Poors, said that U.S. Treasury securities no longer had a "stable" outlook, but rather a "negative" one.

Numerous doom and gloom predictions, including from our own IRS regulation-challenged Treasury Secretary, have spewed forth regarding a "no" vote on increasing the federal debt ceiling.  The U.S. might default or go bankrupt, he says.  Even "conservative" legislators say that the "no" vote must be hinged to something like a balanced budget amendment.  (Remember how difficult the Founders made it to amend the Constitution.)  This is another roadblock!  I would say, rather, that a country that needs to have its credit limit increased repeatedly is one that obviously cannot pay its bills, and it is time to cut up the credit card.  Stop the insane spending spree!

In the last 10 years, Mrs. Emerson has voted up the debt ceiling 5 of 10 times, which represents (to the nearest trillion) her approving of $4 trillion of $8 trillion in increases; as a Representative in the 7^th District, Mr. Blunt has the same record.  He has not had the opportunity to cast such a vote in the Senate.  Since becoming a Senator, Mrs. McCaskill has voted up the debt ceiling 6 of 6 times, representing over $5 trillion in added federal debt.  There is blame to lay on the administrations and legislators of both major parties.

Please call or write them without delay, and urge them to just vote "no" on an increase of the federal debt limit.  It should be a stand-alone vote:  no riders, contingencies, or other conditions.

Representative Jo Ann Emerson:  (202) 225-4404

Senator Roy Blunt:  (202) 224-5721

Senator Claire McCaskill:  (202) 224-6154