The Obama administration shows a remarkable disdain for the Constitution. From the unconstitutional individual mandate to unconstitutional political appointments, no clause seems sacred to President Barack Obama. Sadly, that now includes even the freedom of religion — the first right enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

... Obama argued in 2006 that “secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.” Yet he is now asking believers to do just that. All those that work to help others in the public square and to assist those in need are now being told to “leave their religion at the door.”

In November of 2011, four out of the five expert witnesses before the Subcommittee agreed that a Medicare price control policy has disincentivized the production of certain drugs and is at least part of the reason we now have the drug shortages that are killing Americans. An exchange between Congressman Bret Guthie (R-KY) and Dr. Howard Koh (Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services) went like this:

Congressman Guthrie: "I had a group of oncologists in the other day … and they say they literally have to make choices about who they take care of because they don’t have the drugs available.  So I asked kind of the question, “I can’t believe a company won’t make them if you have the demand for them.”  And they told me that this particular type of drug–a generic—[is] priced differently in the federal government.  So Medicare actually prices these drugs different than other drugs. Is what they were saying true?"

Dr. Koh: "… We have a role of Medicare here that reimburses according to what’s called the average sales price.  So that is one factor here but we don’t view that as a significant issue in driving the shortages we’re seeing here."

Uh oh... don't tell Greece. Bloomberg is reporting that for patients and pharmacists in financially stricken Greece, even finding Aspirin has turned into a headache. The major cause is the Greek government, which sets prices for medicines. As part of an effort to cut its own costs, Greece has mandated lower drug prices in the past year. So how is that working out? Mina Mavrou, who runs a pharmacy in a middle-class Athens suburb, spends hours each day pleading with drug makers, wholesalers and colleagues to hunt down medicines for clients. Life-saving drugs such as Sanofi’s blood-thinner Clexane and GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s asthma inhaler Flixotide often appear as lines of crimson data on pharmacists’ computer screens, meaning the products aren’t in stock or that pharmacists can’t order as many units as they need.

The reason? Price capping has fed a secondary market. Drug manufacturers as well wholesalers sell their shipments outside the country at higher prices than they can get within Greece. Strained government finances only make matters worse. Wholesalers and pharmacists say the system suffers from a lack of liquidity, as public insurers delay payments to pharmacies, which in turn can’t pay suppliers on time. “They’re saying you pay me now, and then you’ll get the money from your social security fund,” said Ioannis Theodorakis, chairman of the Association of Persons with Multiple Sclerosis he said in an interview in his office in Athens, a few steps from where protesters lob Molotov cocktails and pelt police with rocks at Syntagma Square.

Welcome to price to controls, where fire bombs are plentiful but life saving drugs, even aspirin, are not. But remember, the Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services testifies the Greeceification of America is a good outcome.

The State if Illinois requires that foster agencies must consider same-sex couples as potential foster-care and adoptive parents if they want to receive state money. Impacted by this decision is Catholic Charities and it's affiliates that believes that their religious principles dictate that adoptions occur only by married heterosexual couples. “In the name of tolerance, we’re not being tolerated,” said Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, who referred refer same-sex couples to other agencies (as they had been doing for unmarried couples), but that was not acceptable to the state. Read it all, and ask yourself, is this social engineering by the state, an intrusion into religious practice and consciousness, or simply ending discrimination.

Credit in advance to The KraalSpace. I can't help but think how similarly governments in Canada and the US function - and why we need a huge shake-up in DC. Be sure to read it all.

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I sent this local Ottawa story to Mark Steyn, in the hope he might write about it on his site or put it on his sidebar. It's similar to a story he's written about a few times, regarding a bridge near his little New Hampshire town that needed to be replaced.

This story, I think, is even a bit better, because it shows how government health care leads us on and on to more and more government dependence, even as the growing government does less and less for us.

A local man in poor health had to have his leg amputated this past year, and he required a ramp to be built at his house before he could go home. Not being related to a cabinet minister or a hockey player, he joined the line of supplicants for government funds to build the $4,800 ramp, and was turned down at every turn (with the encouraging promise that he could always reapply month after month until he finally succeeded). With no ramp, he couldn't leave the hospital, so he's been languishing in a hospital bed since August, at a cost to the government of over $90,000.

The story came to mercifully happy end, though, and, just as in Steyn's bridge case, it was no thanks to the multi-million dollar government do-gooder ministries. I'll quote the Citizen article, because it has that tell-tale ring of good common sense, practicality and neighbourliness that's becoming all too rare these days:

After I left him the details on a phone message Thursday, (local Conservative MP Jack) MacLaren called Friday morning to tell me what he was working on with Tom Black, president of the Ontario Landowners Association.

In addition to promoting property rights, MacLaren, a former president of the association, says the group helps people in need whenever it can.

As MacLaren sees it, it's almost Christmas, and what a "real nice Christmas event" this would be if Larry is reunited with his wife for the holidays without having to worry about returning to hospital afterward.

"I'm sure this man would be much happier, and much healthier, at home," he said. "Everyone wants to be home, right? He needs a ramp and it needs to be built. We have the people and the resources to do that, and we will do that."

The work could start as early as tomorrow and be completed by midweek. The ramp is going to be built in Black's barn and then assembled at Larry's house. MacLaren said the ramp will be built by volunteers who the association can call on. One building supplier has already offered a price discount on lumber.

Today's paper had a followup:

The people who promised to build Larry Torrington a wheelchair ramp so he could finally be released from Saint-Vincent Hospital obviously don't fool around.

The ramp was designed Saturday, built Sunday and assembled outside Larry's Stittsville house Monday.

With the ramp in place, Larry - who had surgery in March to remove the lower part of his right leg because of complications from diabetes - was expected to leave hospital and arrive home early this afternoon.

So to recap: Local newspaper alerts local MP of situation on Thursday; by Friday MP has contacted local community leaders and they have assessed problem and are figuring out how to solve it. Tuesday: wheelchair ramp is built and installed and Larry returns home.

This contrasts with 4 months of fruitless petitioning to several government sources of funding, resulting in nothing, and coincidentally costing over $93,000 in hospital expenses, covered by government health insurance.

Now, I don't want to be a Grinch; this is a genuine feelgood story, the good guys came to the rescue and everything worked out the way we would hope it should. But there's still something about this story that bugs me. It's not the insane difference between the money saved by one stingy government bureaucracy versus the amount squandered as a result by a different government bureaucracy, or how nobody could seem to line up those two items into one mind and decide, "This is ridiculous! Give the poor guy his ramp, and let's free up that hospital bed!"

No, it's the way things happened in such an unnatural order. Why was the simplest, most direct course of action the LAST resort? Why did Larry have to spend 4 months wasting his time entreating the government to take pity on him when help was just around the corner? Why do we resign ourselves to filling out endless little bits of paper to feed into an anonymous machine in the hope of getting what we need eventually, instead of speaking directly to the people nearest us, who know us best?

It's not just Larry - we all do this. I think Steyn is right when he warns about how government medical care changes the nature of our relationship with the government. We don't think it will, but we find ourselves just sliding into this supplicant position without even thinking about it.

What's even worse, it seems that as the government takes over the provision of more and more of our needs, it inevitably takes over bits of our life that we never willingly agreed to assign to them. Think about it: this whole story concerned the building of a wooden platform outside a man's house. If Larry's wife had wanted a clothesline erected at the back door, he would have just built it himself or hired a handyman to do it in an afternoon. But somehow because government medical care has gotten involved, a little bit of carpentry has suddenly become "government business", and we slump resignedly as we wait our turn for the government to get to us and take care of the business that we no longer even imagine can be done any other way.

Why do we do this? It isn't because we're getting better service from the government; look at Larry - he never got anything at all, at least, not what he wanted. There was plenty of what he didn't want - moping in a hospital, but nothing at all of what he, his doctors and everyone who knew him knew he needed. Maybe we have all decided that it's too hard to make personal appeals to people we know - it's shameful to reveal that we have needs we can't take care of ourself. And we worry too much about being a burden and a bother to people around us. But a government doesn't have a personality we have to worry about interacting with. We never really think "If I get this, then someone else can't have what they need" because it's never presented that way to us individually. We know that one department loses funding while another one gains it, but it's never personalized. Whereas, with real human beings, we might think "My son's family had to give up their vacation this year to help me to pay for my new furnace" and the resulting discomfort makes us unhappy.

Of course, by eliminating the possibility of getting personal help from someone, we also eliminate the other person's ability to be generous and experience the happiness of helping. Instead, we get our "stuff" - not very good, and maybe extremely late - and there are no messy human interactions to worry about. Even without intending to, letting government help us all the time ends up creating a distant, alienated society of people who don't know each other and don't know how to deal with each other.

Emergencies can still override this numbing effect, but in everyday life we seem to be slumping into a poorer, lonelier existence.

Mitt Romney has taken a lot of heat over his "Romney Care" effort to insure all citizens while he was governor of Massachusetts. And for good reasons. The Massachusetts plan was supposed to accomplish two things; achieve universal health insurance coverage and controlling costs. 

An Op Ed piece written by Romney for the Wall Street Journal said, "Every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance and the costs of health care will be reduced." Sounds good - but results were the opposite.

Let's address cost control first.When implemented, the last day Massachusetts citizens had to sign up for insurance in compliance with the Romney mandate was November 15, 2008. Those failing to show proof of insurance prior to January 1, 2009 would lose their personal exemption for the 2008 state income tax when they filed. In 2009, the penalty increased to 50 percent of the cost of a standard insurance policy.In 2009, the Cato institute estimated that 400,000 Massachusetts residents had failed to buy the required insurance, resulting in significant penalties for persons failing to by insurance mandated by Governor Romney and the state of Massachusetts. Additionally the program greatly over estimated savings, resulting in a $2 billion dollar projected shortfall through 2019. Meanwhile, businesses in Massachusetts with fewer than 50 employees saw their health insurance premiums grow by 14.7 percent between 2006 and 2008, and increase every year since Romney Care was passed. In an attempt to finally try to contain costs, Massachusetts has begun to consider price controls. Which brings me to the subject of this article - that Romney has more in common with President Obama than you know.

Back in 2005, then Governor Romney imposed CO2 emission caps on the six largest and oldest power plants in the state. His administration's press release said (and I quote):

Governor Mitt Romney today announced that Massachusetts will take another major step in meeting its commitment to protecting air quality when strict state limitations on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants take effect on January 1, 2006. 

Massachusetts is the first and only state to set CO2 emissions limits on power plants. The limits, which target the six largest and oldest power plants in the state, are the toughest in the nation.

In addition to reaffirming existing stringent CO2 limits, the draft regulations announced today, which will be filed next week, contain protections against excessive price increases for businesses and consumers. They allow power generation companies to implement CO2 reductions at their own facilities or fund other reduction projects off-site through a greenhouse gas offset and credits program.


In other words, the Romney administration in 2005 essentially did what Barack Obama’s EPA wants to do now. He imposed CO2 emission caps — the “toughest in the nation” — in an effort to curtail traditional energy production. Not only did Romney impose these costly new regulations, he then imposed price caps to keep power companies from passing the cost along to the consumer. The outcome of the cap was Massachusetts’ electrical production it dropped 18% in four years, from over 46 billion megawatt hours to 38 billion. International imports, however, went from 697 million megawatt hours in 2006 to 4.177 billion megawatt hours two years later, and to almost 5 billion megawatt hours in 2009, more than twice the amount imported in any of the previous twenty years. As we have seen in Romney Care, regulation and price controls eventually drive businesses into bankruptcy or relocation to escape increasing costs destroying profitability, while passing increasing costs to consumers.

And if that wasn't enough, Obama’s Science Czar, John Holdren, helped architect the Romney CO2 emission caps. Again, I'll let the Romney Administration press release do the talking:

In the development of greenhouse gas policy, Romney Administration officials have elicited input from environmental and economic policy experts. These include John Holden [sic], professor of environmental policy at Harvard University and chair of the National Commission on Energy Policy and Billy Pizer, and economist at Resources for the Future, an environmental policy think-tank based in Washington DC.

This is the same John Holdren who serves as Obama Science Czar and wrote in favor of coercive government population-control policies in the 1970s, and who in 2009, suggested government-imposed redistribution as a cure for "American exceptionalism".

As for Mr. William A. (Billy) Pizer, well, that's even more interesting. It seems he is (or was) head of the Department of Treasury’s Office of Environment and Energy whose mandate it is to "... develop, coordinate, and execute the Treasury Department's role in the domestic and international environment and energy agenda of the United States... as well as contribute to the development of domestic and international policy options to address climate change."

I don't think it is unfair to characterize Governor Romney as having more in common with President Obama and the Democratic Party than conservative ideals. Too often I have read on to many blogs or found myself in to many conversations being implored not to 'waste my vote' and make sure I vote to nominate a conservative GOP candidate who can win. The refrain I often hear is "anyone but Obama." Anyone? Really?

Beware of those who are conservatives in name only. We have one shot at this in 2012. We can't afford "anyone."

...Shutdown Imminent? 

The House stunned Republican leaders Wednesday by rejecting a temporary spending bill that would have funded the government through November 18.

The vote failed, 195-230, after Democrats pulled their support for the bill and Republican leaders were forced to scramble for enough votes entirely within their own ranks. Boehner had tried, unsuccessfully, to rally Republicans behind the bill earlier in the day, warning them in a closed-door conference meeting that the level of spending was likely only to increase if their legislation failed. “Boehner just broke it down pretty simple,” said freshman Rep. Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.). “He goes, ‘I know there are some of you out here who don’t want to vote for this thing, but if you don’t, you think this is a big number? Wait until you see what we get back, and we’re not in the driver’s seat then.’ ”

However, four dozen conservatives refused the Boehner shakedown and voted against the bill because it left spending levels for 2012 higher than the cap set in the House GOP budget (at least 48 have principles). Democratic leaders objected to a GOP provision cutting funding from a Department of Energy manufacturing loan program (think Solyndra) to offset additional money for disaster relief.

Now the House and Senate must pass a spending bill by September 30 to keep the government running into the next fiscal year, but both chambers are scheduled to be out on recess next week (like that hasn't happened before). Look for a blame game to ensue, GOP leadership to be lacking, and a full court press from the Democrats.

Here are the 48 who opposed the resolution. Be sure to thank your Representative. If they are not listed below, ask them why they are not supporting GOP plans to reduce America's debt.

48 conservatives who opposed the CR:

Amash (MI-03)
Austria (OH-07)
Barletta (PA-11)
Broun (GA-10)
Bucshon (IN-08)
Burgess (TX-26)
Burton, D. (IN-05)
Campbell, J. (CA-48)
Canseco (TX-23)
Chaffetz (UT-03)
DesJarlais (TN-04)
Duncan, Jeff (SC-03)
Duncan, John (TN-02)
Fincher (TN-08)
Flake (AZ-06)
Fleming (LA-04)
Franks, T. (AZ-02)
Gingrey (GA-11)
Gohmert (TX-01)
Gowdy (SC-04)
Graves, T. (GA-09)
Huelskamp (KS-01)
Huizenga (MI-02)
Hultgren (IL-14)
Johnson, Timothy (IL-15)
Jordan (OH-04)
King, S. (IA-05)
Lamborn (CO-05)
Landry, J. (LA-03)
Lummis (WY-AL)
Mack (FL-14)
Marchant (TX-24)
McClintock (CA-04)
Miller, J. (FL-01)
Mulvaney (SC-05)
Neugebauer (TX-19)
Pearce (NM-02)
Poe (TX-02)
Posey (FL-15)
Rohrabacher (CA-46)
Ross, D. (FL-12)
Royce (CA-40)
Schweikert (AZ-05)
Turner, M. (OH-03)
Walberg (MI-07)
Walsh (IL-08)
Westmoreland, L. (GA-03)
Wilson, J. (SC-02)

Below are the list of 22 Republicans that knew the hypocrisy of the Boehner Plan. They understood the fact that raising the deficit for 11 months and cutting it for one is not "deep spending cuts" - not to mention it in no way looks like a Balanced Budget Amendment that was tacked don at the 11th hour. If they are in your district, write them a letter of thanks.

In a 2003 Psychology Today article titled "Understanding Compulsive Liars", Robert Reich, M.D., a New York City psychiatrist and expert in psychopathology, says compulsive lying has no official diagnosis. Instead, intentional dissimulation -- not the kind associated with dementia or brain injury -- is associated with a range of diagnoses, such as antisocial, borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. When it comes to compulsive liars, says Charles Ford, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama Birmingham, "words seem to flow out of their mouths without them thinking about it." To understand the mind of a fake, Reich suggests considering what lying does for the liar. Deceit as a means to an end -- like lying to get a job -- is easy to comprehend. Much harder to spot, he says, is lying "for primary gains": deceptions that create a different sense of self without any immediate benefit. "It has to do with self-esteem," Reich says. "You want to be like someone else because you aren't very happy with yourself."