Krakatoa put this in the sidebar.

Drudge may or may not have overplayed this -- but this sure seems like a preview into the future, where all decisions about life and death are made by bureaucrats, and, hence, are naturally swayable by political processes.

“Please, suspend the rules until we look at this policy,” [Rep. Lou] Barletta, a Pennsylvania Republican, asked Sebelius during a House hearing Tuesday on behalf of Sarah Murnaghan, a 10-year-old girl who needs a lung transplant. She can’t qualify for an adult lung transplant until the age of 12, according to federal regulations, but Sebelius has the authority to waive that rule on her behalf. The pediatric lungs for which she currently qualifies aren’t available.

“I would suggest, sir, that, again, this is an incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies,” Sebelius replied. “The medical evidence and the transplant doctors who are making the rule — and have had the rule in place since 2005 making a delineation between pediatric and adult lungs, because lungs are different that other organs — that it’s based on the survivability [chances].”

Now, in some cases, these decisions are already being made by federal bureaucrats -- as in the current case. Sebelius' involvement doesn't seem to grow out of Obamacare, but out of pre-existing laws regulating organ donations. (Why exactly these are a federal concern, I don't quite know.)

But this little scene -- lobbying for the right to medical treatment -- will play out so many more thousands of times in the future thanks to ObamaCare.

Ultimately, they'll start deciding who should live and who should die not merely on medical grounds, but on political ones -- not just expected life chances, but whether you're living a life they really want to save.

And for anyone who doesn't think that will happen, I have three words for you: I.R.S.

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 PM | Comments (249)
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Sexton writes about this obviously criminal double-standard.

Rep. Shock then pulled up the description of Organizing for Action, a 501(c)4 whose stated mission is to "support President Obama in achieving enactment of the national agenda Americans voted for on Election Day 2012." OFA describes this agenda as including legislation on "gun violence prevention, sensible environmental policies to address climate change and immigration reform." Despite the obvious political overtones, OFA's work is considered within the proper realm of a 501(c)4 activity, i.e. promoting social welfare.

Democrats seemed to have a hard time accepting the idea that other people's definitions of social welfare may differ from their own. This is why none of the Democrats in the hearing expressed concern about OFA or any of the other progressive 501(c)4 groups which engage in political activity. They seem to take for granted that their definition of social welfare--on marriage, gun control, the environment--are the definitions.

Rep. Shock effectively pointed out how myopic this view is. One person's social welfare is another person's political activity.

Link to the video at the bottom of Sexton's post. It's worth a watch.

Incidentally, the Democratic/Media talking point of the day is "Republicans Overplaying Their Hand."

Or perhaps "over the cliffs." You have to mix it up a little bit sometimes.

Posted by: Ace at 11:31 AM | Comments (255)
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Hear this guy out.

Immigrants who have recently arrived lack country-specific human capital. This includes language skills, labor-market experience, and cultural knowledge. In the United States, recent immigrants typically earn less than natives do, but they experience faster wage growth as they accumulate work experience and skills. Immigrants eventually tend to catch up.

In the Swedish welfare state, people live comfortably even if they are unemployed. This means that few are willing to accept low-paying or disagreeable work, preferring to live on welfare until something better shows up. But immigrants who never enter the labor market rarely catch up to natives in skills.

Immigrants who do not enter the labor market remain isolated from Swedish society. Integration is not only a question of work. It is also about getting to know the natives and learning their customs. This is difficult for unemployed immigrants, who tend to live in segregated areas and often have not once set foot in the home of a native Swede. The generosity of Swedish welfare thus paradoxically traps many immigrants in permanent exclusion from the labor market and, by extension, from society. In segregated neighborhoods, not working eventually becomes the norm through social osmosis, creating a vicious cycle that carries on into the next generation.

Economic factors tell only half the story, however. Multiculturalism itself is an even bigger impediment to integration. Multiculturalism teaches that natives have no moral right to impose their culture on immigrants. Instead, immigrants are encouraged to cling to the culture of their home country. This approach impedes integration into both the Swedish way of life and the Swedish economy. The Swedish establishment has embraced multiculturalism perhaps more wholeheartedly than any other country has.

I'm not sure it's "multiculturalism" per se. I think it might be an element of multiculturalism-- or rather, an element of straight-up Marxist critique which informs most of so-called "multiculturalism."

There really isn't anything particularly wrong, I don't think, with being open to other customs, or maintaining the Official Position that No One Is Better Than Any Other. (While everyone secretly believes their own culture to be superior, naturally.)

The problem is the Marxist attack on society generally, the unending critique. All good little Marxists and multiculturalists know that they're always supposed to talk about how Their Own Culture is sick and perverse and violent and evil. Actually, of course, such persons are not speaking of their own culture; their own culture is that of Transnational Progressivism, or simply "Marxism," but they pose as persons critiquing themselves for the same reason Andrew Sullivan poses as a "conservative" -- a critique has more authority when it is lodged from a member of the group under critique than from without it.

The combination of this Marxist attack on the culture of the West plus the "Multicultural" boosting of everyone's self-esteem produces a singularly lopsided, and singularly false, message about the culture of the West-- the West is constantly subject to withering scrutiny and calumny, while any non-Western culture is condescendingly praised. The sins of the West, such as miitarism, racism, nationalism (tribal chauvanism), misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and war, are thundered against, whereas the sins of non-Western culture -- such as, yes, militarism, racism, nationalism (tribal chauvanism), misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and war, and also, for an added bonus, terrorism and mass murder -- are papered over or alleged to not exist at all.

If you were a relatively uneducated unemployed immigrant living in a ghetto, and all you heard all day was that the country you lived in (and the race of people that constituted the majority) were just Terrible Sinners Deserving of Punishment and you, on the other hand, were an Angel From Heaven Who Just Needed to Be True to Himself, what would you end up thinking?

An even bigger problem in all of this is that Western culture is now so feminized and disdainful of any masculine virtue that young immigrant men see nothing in the West's culture for them. Men -- particularly the "less cultured" sorts of men rioting in Sweden -- have a natural desire to be virile and to demonstrate their virility.

But in the West, masculinity is almost shameful. Certainly it's not accorded any status of honor.

It is the young immigrant men who are the problem, not the young immigrant women (by and large).

Which culture would the young immigrant men choose? They have two bad choices: The culture which seems to run contrary to their impulses, generally looking down on masculine virtue, or the one which promotes a ridiculous version of masculinity as little but Warrior-Tribe aggression displays, violence, and rape. And of course some rioting, and of course some terrorism and slaughter, too.

Is there any man in Sweden willing to stand up and forcefully assert the value of the Swedish culture? Or will the only speech in favor of one's culture forever be from violent-minded, uncultured young men in ghettos?

via @comradearthur

Posted by: Ace at 12:47 PM | Comments (199)
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You'll remember that Californians who donated to help pass Proposition 8 were boycotted.

The IRS gave NOM's chief political rival its donor list. I believe so that a similar boycott could be had.

This was, of course, illegal. And making it worse is proof of consciousness of guilt -- whoever leaked the document took pains to redact the internal stamps and markings that would show it was leaked from the IRS.

But NOM was able to go to an expert to "see under" the black bars of redaction.

But Eastman shed light on another potential controversy involving the IRS -- the unauthorized disclosure of tax document information. He recalled how information on their donors was leaked last year and published on the website of the Human Rights Campaign, which Eastman described as their "principal political opponent" on the marriage issue. The documents showed Mitt Romney's political committee as a donor.

Asked by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., if he had "proof" that the IRS leaked that material, Eastman said that he did.

Eastman explained that while some information was redacted in the posted version, his group's "forensic" specialists were able to strip layers from the document and found "the original document that was posted there had originated from within the IRS."

He said the version had "internal IRS stamps," which "only exist within the IRS."

Eastman added: "You can imagine our shock and disgust over this. ... We jealously guard our donors."

He later alleged the information was "deliberately" provided to their opponents.

"If that's inadvertent, the word no longer means anything," he said[.]

Furthermore, the IRS has "stonewalled" his demands for an investigation into the crime.

Corrected: I originally wrote "Human Rights Watch" in the headline. That's a different left-leaning organization (pro-Palestinian). The gay marriage one is "Human Rights Campaign." Thanks to @dreaboi for the correction.

Posted by: Ace at 09:48 AM | Comments (621)
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I had the audio on, and I immediately knew this was Jim McDermott when I heard the, um, texture of his claims.

There was just a fun little exchange: McDermott was claiming that all sorts of people got targeted, and that the Tea Party merely "feels" that they were targeted. The chair (I don't know who-- Ed: It was Paul Ryan) informed McDermott that the minority Representatives had the opportunity to call as witnesses liberal groups which were targeted, but couldn't find any.

So, even though they couldn't find a witness who could say "I was targeted due to my progressive beliefs," McDermott asserts they exist nevertheless, and he's here to share the pain of these hypothetical victims with you.

Adding: The exchange went on. I'm sure it will be cut by some site. It was a darned good exchange. After Paul Ryan hit McDermott, Aaron Shock brushed the Democrats back from all the various bullshit excuses and justifications they were using. He brought up Organizing For America -- a 501(c)4 whose and asked, "Is that political?"

Who's "We"? Has McDermott confessed something here?

We know that the most partisan Congressmen write letters to the IRS demanding these sorts of investigations. When McDermott says if you had never applied, "we" would not have had to ask you these questions, is he tipping his hand?

Did he write some letters demanding just this treatment, which he's now justifying?

Corrected: Paul Ryan administered the Donkey Punch to McDermott, and then Aaron Shock applied the Dirty Sanchez. As I'm listening, not watching, I'm not always sure who is speaking.

Video of Paul Ryan's reply here. I'm sure the Aaron Shock one is coming.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:35 AM | Comments (388)
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Jonah Goldberg writes about one of his obsessions.

Longtime readers of mine will recall that one of my bugaboos is the liberal obsession with the “moral equivalent of war.” Ever since William James coined the phrase, liberalism has essentially become a cargo cult to the idea. The core idea, expressed in myriad different ways, is that normal democratic capitalism is insufficient. Society needs an organizing principle that causes the citizenry to drop their individual pursuits, petty ambitions, and disorganized lifestyles and unite around common purposes.

Naturally, the State must provide leadership and coordination in this effort, just as it does in a war. That was the essential rationale behind the New Deal – war mobilization without war.

Barack Obama has spent much of his presidency all but begging the American people to imbue themselves with a moral equivalent of war spirit. Sometimes he’s used the phrase explicitly, other times he’s dreamed that America could act like the military. Other times he’s droned on about the need for unity and dedicating ourselves to a “cause larger than ourselves” – that cause invariably being the government. He’s talked a lot about “Sputnik moments” and the need for Americans to rally around his green agenda the way we rallied around the space program.

I loathe all of this. The whole point of a free society is that people will do what their hearts and consciences tell them to do, individually and in voluntary association. We have a military to keep us free, not to provide examples of how best to surrender our freedom. Moreover, the exhortation to give our selves over to the spirit of wartime mobilization when there is no war is frightening because, unlike real wars, not only is “victory” not defined, it cannot be defined. We will never have a kingdom of heaven on earth, so any call to mobilize the people to fight for one necessarily means permanent mobilization, which means the permanent surrender of what this country was founded to establish.

One failing I find in conservative rhetoric, as far as its appeal to the citizenry, is that it often seems "too political." Certainly the media and the left (but I repeat myself) constantly cast us that way, that we're just "rightwingers" who have no other interests but our rightwing ideas. That we can then be dismissed as cranks, because all we do is gnaw on our various fringe political chew-toys.

But this is projection, isn't it?

I really like Goldberg's formulation here. Not just because it is 100% true -- many things are 100% true, and yet aren't particularly grabby as political rhetoric.

But I think this one is 100% true and grabby, as it reveals the truth about who it is, exactly, who's obsessed with government -- who it is who is determined to tell us that our lives have no meaning outside of our service in the corporate entity called the US Government --and who it is who says there is far more meaning outside of a Government-Ordered Life, and just wants to be left alone to find our own meanings.

I think 30% of people, those LIVs, are only interested in politics to the extent politics connects with their own aspirations and vanities. I think Goldberg's formulation could be very useful in appealing to the LIVs.

I know it's very appealing to me, personally. And not even in a political way, necessarily.

Is the deepest drive of humanity to be part of a government program? Is our highest aspiration to join a government-organized social club?

I don't think so. Not only do I not think so, I think it's insane to believe such a thing. And pointing out the insanities of the left is the way to beat them, because LIVs really don't care about policy; they care about which party makes themselves think well of themselves by associating with it.

Associating with a group that believes lunatic things does not permit someone to think well of himself for associating with it. Quite the opposite.

Posted by: Ace at 07:15 AM | Comments (335)
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This is the "victims hearing."

True the Vote leader Catherine Engelbrecht is not there. I don't know why.

CSPAN is not showing it on TV, but is is livestreaming it.

"I'm not here as a serf or a vassal:" A Ms. Garretson just delivered a wonderful address, choking back tears for the America that's been lost.

Posted by: Ace at 06:13 AM | Comments (456)
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• Obama's Appointees Using Secret E-Mail Accounts
  
• Treasury Inspector General On Obama's IRS: "This Is Unprecedented"
  
• Christie's Tough Choices
  
• Immigration Bill Lacks The 60 Senate Votes Needed To Pass
  
• Jonathan Alter Throws Valerie Jarrett Under The Bus
  
• Putin: S-300 Missiles Not Sent To Syria
  
• Detroit Fire Sale?
  
• Police Officer Bids Farewell To His Slain Partner
  
• The Moment a Drone Narrowly Misses A Passenger Plane Carrying 100 People
  
• Why Humans Still Can't Go To Mars
  
• Old US Weapon Makes A Surprise Reappearance In Syria
  
• The Left Seems To Be The Only Political Group Concerned With Racial Purity
  
• IDF Women Are The Hot
  
• Mike Rowe: What My Father Taught Me
  
• Second Amendment Feel Good Story Of The Day
  
• Day One Of The Bradley Manning Trial
  
• IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000.00
  
• Navy SEAL Retires, Becomes A Tranny
  
• Southern California May Ban Fires On The Beach
  
• This Guy Probably Won't Win Back Custody Of His Son
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:30 AM | Comments (194)
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Happy Tuesday. (Tuesday? Yep, it's Tuesday.)

The President couldn't have been clearer about premiums: "If you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan is the amount of money you will spend on premiums. That will be less." Over and over, Obama made that promise. Now the Democrats want to dispute the "rate shock" that, lo and behold, premiums will rise because of Obamacare.

I think the most inventive Democratic response is probably Ezra Klein's, which boils down to the claim that the President cannot be held accountable for his insurance premiums lie because it was an obvious lie that everyone should have seen through when it was made. Obvious lies, we are to understand, do not count against the speaker. Rather, in Klein's twisted ethic, such lies are to be held against the hearer who did not understand them correctly. The "correct" meaning of the President's lie, according to Klein, is the exact opposite of the plain meaning of the words of the lie. In other words, Klein thinks Obama was being sarcastic when he said you will spend less money on premiums.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:48 AM | Comments (470)
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Zombie: Time for a Workers' Revolution

True workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. And a world to win.

The formula to determine how much each employee gets to keep for living expenses is called "the tax code," and those who contribute to the national product are called "taxpayers." The managers deciding how the pile is spent are "politicians," who are chosen every two years in a shareholders' meeting called an "election." This system worked pretty well for quite a long time - until recently. It is only within the last few years that something remarkable happened: The number of contributing "taxpayers" in the country for the first time has fallen to approximately 50% of the population. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed, retired, disabled or indigent citizens grew, as did the number of citizens who earned so little in part-time or low-paying jobs that they paid no taxes, as did the number of people laboring in the untaxed underground economy, as did the number of bureaucrats.

The end result of this epochal demographic and economic shift is that for the first time in American history, the people who actually work for a living and contribute to the common good - the "proletariat" in Marx's version, and the "taxpayers" in ours - no longer control the company. Vote-wise, the scales have tipped in favor on the non-contributors and the bureaucrats, and suddenly they are the ones making the decisions about what to do with our collective gigantic pile of money - while those who actually created the pile through their work and tax contributions have become powerless. It is outrage over this very power shift that spawned the Tea Party, which is essentially a movement of taxpayers angry that they no longer get to determine how their taxes are spent. Historically speaking, the Tea Party movement can be accurately defined as a workers' revolution.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:14 PM | Comments (628)
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