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MediScam Back in the News
by John McClaughry

The dark prospect of perpetual insider struggles over complex Medicaid financing suggests that Vermonters need to come up with a new and clear agreement on the state's role in health care. Where does the responsibility for maintaining one's own health end, and the taxpayer's responsibility take over? To whom will the state send the bill? And will the accounting be honest and transparent?
   
Danziger Cartoon
By John R. Gilligan

Far be it for Jeff Danziger, the Times Argus, New York Times or the rest of what Rush Limbaugh calls the "drive by media"; to let the facts or truth stand in the way of their liberal propaganda. I'm referring to the Danziger's "Air Force gives huge contract to Airbus" cartoon in Saturday's March 15th Times Argus. Had Danziger or the editors at the Argus got their hate filled anti-conservative, anti-military heads our of their butts and checked facts instead of brainwashing gullible readers, they might not have published it. What they fail to point out could fill pages. So I would like to tell you the rest of the story.
 
Deadly Discrimination in the Northeast Kingdom
By Deborah T. Bucknam

and their families. So do male victims of domestic abuse. In my experience, men are reluctant to pursue abuse claims against their partners because they are embarrassed, and they know there is no support for them at Umbrella or any other domestic violence organizations. They feel helpless and ashamed—much like women did nearly 30 years ago when their domestic violence complaints were ignored or minimized.

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." --Bertrand Russell

A New Era for Liberal Talk Radio?
By Tim Johnson, Burlington Free Press, March 17, 2008

In assuming this new position, Kireker (pronounced Kirker) is phasing down his longtime role as a Vermont venture capitalist and bringing his skills, and his contacts, to the task of nurturing a national radio enterprise. Just 4 years old, Air America has weathered both bankruptcy and the loss of its marquee host, Al Franken. (Franken, Air America's answer to Rush Limbaugh in the early afternoon, stepped down last year to begin his campaign for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota.)

Running On Empty
From VermontTiger.com, March 17, 2008

The good news ... no expansion of  the Catamount health care program.  No money to spend makes it hard on a legislator.  But Montpelier manages to look very busy while getting nothing (much) done.  There was a proposal floating around to end the tax break on capital gains and either spend the money or use it to reduce marginal rates on the top income tax brackets , depending on who you were talking to.  Good idea or bad, doesn't make any difference.  It's going nowhere.

A Study To Study Studies
Caledonian Record Editorial, March 17, 2008

Maybe Vermont legislators could learn a lesson from the Maryland dilemma, i.e., go cold turkey and swear off study commissions and committees. Like all withdrawals from addictions, it will cause some panic and a lot of cold sweats, but it will finally clear away a lot of unnecessary delay and expense.

Vermont Revenue Dependent on Wealthiest
From WCAX-TV Burlington, March 20, 2008

A recent study published in the Vermont Economy Newsletter found Vermont's tax coffers are more dependent than ever on those who earn a lot. It found that people who earn more than $100,000 make up just 10 percent of the tax filers, but they pay 60 percent of the state's income taxes. And that number is expected to rise to 70 percent by 2010.

Circ Opponents Must Bear Costs
By Matt Sutkoski, Burlington Free Press, March 22, 2008

Circumferential Highway opponents won a big victory in 2004 when a U.S. District Court judge said the proposal needed further study. Friday, the same judge ruled the opponents must pay their own attorney fees from the complex litigation surrounding the Circ decision.

Feudalism in Vermont
From VermontTiger.com, March 17, 2008

The aspect of feudalism my wife had in mind was this concept of an elite minority determining the fate of the rest -- not, in Vermont's case, through blatant exploitation or oppression, but by the placing of strong constraints on the majority's freedom of action. In Vermont, the elite (i.e., the liberals, both elective and appointive, of the Burlington-Montpelier Axis) like to think they have the interests of the rest of us at heart. Indeed, they seek to provide universal health care, improved education, and other benefits for us peasants. However, as an insular leadership class, they dictate how these benefits are to be structured, paid for, and distributed. This doesn't mean simply creating and controlling basic administrative processes, which any government must do. It means that the elite has its own agenda that it imposes on the rest of us -- an onerous, costly, and often unfair regime that deprives individuals, businesses, and communities of both freedom and the responsibility that comes with that freedom. As the elite see it, they know best, and the rest of us should just fall into line.

From Elsewhere

Why Not Optimism?
By Larry Kudlow, National Review, March 20, 2008

The growing export sector is showing considerable strength. So are agriculture, energy, industrials, and international infrastructure. The e-forecasting economic service says GDP had a small gain in February and a positive reading of 1.5 percent over the past six months. The economy isn’t collapsing. And while it may be flat, there’s no deep recession. Hooveresque monetary contraction? It’s not there, either. After numerous Fed easing moves, the three-month growth of the monetary base has shifted from minus-4 percent last December to plus-6 percent in mid-March. The broader M2 money supply has registered an 11 percent annual gain over the past three months.

The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat
By Richard Harris, NPR, March 19, 2008

Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.

Obama on How to Talk to Whites
By Judith A. Klinghoffer, PoliticalMavens.com, March 17, 2008

In the good, old tradition of revolutionaries, Obama hides in plain print. So, before listening to his speech, it’s worth while to note the following passages from his autobiography. On p. 94-95 he describes an effective tactic to deal with White people:

It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved - such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time. …

Indeed, when he was a community organizer (age 22 prior to going to law school) he happily cooperated with Rafiq, a former gangster turned Nation of Islam. He even believed that Black Nationalism was a good therapy for Blacks. That was also the reason he supported Wright (pp. 190-200). For he shares Michelle’s sentiments of alienation, came to believe that race should trump everything and it should be anti-white: …

If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, of the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence. If nationalism could deliver. As it turned out, questions of effectiveness, and not sentiment, cause most of my quarrels with Rafiq.

Rep. Pence Looks to Defund Planned Parenthood
By Penny Starr, NewsMax.com, March 18, 2008

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., is proposing an amendment to the appropriations bill that funds the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services to prohibit federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

Science Organizations' 'Consensus' Statements Do Not Reflect Members' Views
By Joseph D'Aleo The Heartland Institute

The American Geophysical Union, the world's largest organization representing earth and space scientists, has issued a new statement on the causes and consequences of recent climate change and possible responses.

Similarly, in the past few years the Royal Society, National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and American Meteorological Society (AMS) have issued statements endorsing a so-called consensus view that human activities are driving global warming.

What you don't hear is that these societies never allowed member scientists to vote on these climate statements. Essentially, in each case only two dozen or so members on ad hoc committees and governing boards of these institutions produced the "consensus" statements.

The Peculiar Theology of Black Liberation
By Spengler, Asia Times, March 18, 2008

During the black-power heyday of the late 1960s, after the murder of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, the mentors of Wright decided that blacks were the Chosen People. James Cone, the most prominent theologian in the "black liberation" school, teaches that Jesus Christ himself is black. As he explains:

"Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants."

Theologically, Cone's argument is as silly as the "Aryan Christianity" popular in Nazi Germany, which claimed that Jesus was not a Jew at all but an Aryan Galilean, and that the Aryan race was the "chosen people". Cone, Hopkins and Wright do not propose, of course, to put non-blacks in concentration camps or to conquer the world, but racially-based theology nonetheless is a greased chute to the nether regions.