“A single-payer health-insurance system can finance good-quality coverage for all U.S. residents while still reducing overall health-care spending by roughly 10%, according to a study I co-authored last November.All Americans would be able to get care from their chosen providerswithout having to pay premiums, deductibles or copayments…”
Wait,…we’ll be able to keep our doctor…with no premiums or copays…and overall healthcare spending would decline?!?
Pollin’s promises (which sound vaguely familiar!) notwithstanding, when it comes to the quality and accessibility of single-payer healthcare, Jim Freeman begs to differ, and offers a little foretaste of what’s to come:
National Health Service staff are quitting their pension scheme at almost five times the rate of other public sector workers as they struggle with rising living costs and tax changes, according to figures that have sparked calls for urgent action by authorities.
…The Financial Times has reported that young doctors were quitting the NHS scheme because they could not afford mandatory contributions amounting to about 7 per cent to 9 per cent of their salary.
This is highly relevant to a fundamental question about Sen. Sanders’ plan to impose government-run health care: Will doctors and nurses in the United States continue to willingly practice medicine if the job comes with lower pay and even more bureaucracy than the current highly regulated system?“
So who are you going to believe: Robert Pollin, who’s peddling the same tired tripe we heard from Progressives when they lied ObamaCare into existence…or the actual history of single-payer healthcare where it’s been put in practice? One thing’s for certain: the likes of Bernie Sanders will never be subject to the slings and arrows of single-payer healthcare’s outrageous misfortunes.
We don’t know which surprises us more: Progressives continuing to peddle such patent prevarications…or the WSJpublishing them.
We report, you decide. But if you need a hint, perhaps our blog’s not for you.
WE INTERRUPT OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING FOR THIS NEWS BULLETIN!!!
“Thank you, Illinois Prosecutors Bar Association. It’s refreshing to see a professional association that, when confronted with highly unusual, controversial, and possibly unethical behavior by one of its members, didn’t choose to close ranks and protect “one of their own.” Instead, the IPBA laid down a clear marker of what behavior is normal and standard.
…The manner in which this case was dismissed was abnormal and unfamiliar to those who practice law in criminal courthouses across the State. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges alike do not recognize the arrangement Mr. Smollett received.Evenmore problematic, the state’s attorney and her representativeshave fundamentally misled the public on the law and circumstances surrounding the dismissal.
There’s something delightful about the way they methodically and systematically refute the claims of State’s Attorney Kimberly Foxx and her office:
When an elected State’s Attorney recuses herself from a prosecution, Illinois law provides that the court shall appoint a special prosecutor.See 55 ILCS 5/3-9008(a-15). Typically, the special prosecutor is a neighboring State’s Attorney, the Attorney General, or the State Appellate Prosecutor. Here, the State’s Attorney kept the case within her office and thus never actually recused herself as a matter of law.
Additionally, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office falsely informed the public that the uncontested sealing of the criminal court case was “mandatory” under Illinois law.This statement is not accurate. To the extent the case was even eligible for an immediate seal, that action was discretionary, not mandatory, and only upon the proper filing of a petition to seal. See 20 ILCS 2630/5.2(g)(2). For seals not subject to Section 5.2(g)(2), the process employed in this case by the State’s Attorney effectively denied law enforcement agencies of legally required Notice(See 20 ILCS 2630/5.2(d)(4)) and the legal opportunity to object to the sealing of the file(See 20 ILCS 2630/5.2(d)(5)). The State’s Attorney not only declined to fight the sealing of this case in court, but then provided false information to the public regarding it.
The appearance of impropriety here is compounded by the fact that this case was not on the regularly scheduled court call, the public had no reasonable notice or opportunity to view these proceedings, and the dismissal was done abruptly at what has been called an “emergency” hearing. To date, the nature of the purported emergency has not been publicly disclosed.The sealing of a court case immediately following a hearing where there was no reasonable notice or opportunity for the public to attend is a matter of grave public concern and undermines the very foundation of our public court system.
Whatever motivated Foxx to make this deal, I hope it was worth it to her, because this controversy isn’t going away anytime soon.“
In a related item, writing at the WSJ, Holman Jenkins accurately assesses…
“The evidence was all over the TV news: Confessions by his two accomplices. Surveillance video.A canceled check. Then, as if by the very bleach he said was used to attack him, suddenly all charges against Jussie Smollett for faking a hate crime vanished in an unannounced Chicago court hearing Tuesday.
Mr. Smollett’s insistence on his innocent victimhood, however unctuous, must now be counted a legal masterstroke. Johnnie Cochran would be impressed. It left Chicago prosecutors only the option of near-unconditional surrender if they wanted to make the case go away before Tuesday’s runoff mayoral election—which they clearly did.
Whatever your exact theory of how the case was corrupted, Chicago’s famous Democratic political machine arguably did what was in its own interest. Kim Foxx, the Cook County state prosecutor, who “recused” herself but didn’t, obviously had much to lose if the case went to trial, given her early meddling on behalf of the Smollett family. Well-served also were the two candidates in Tuesday’s all-Democratic runoff for mayor, whom it behooved to have a no-win political controversy end on the watch of unpopular outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
…Americans are plenty cynical about elite self-dealing, though now some will surely prefer to believe Jussie’s lies than believe he is a liar. Others will argue, cogently, that faking a hate crime is itself a hate crime. Then again a preference for lying about such matters is becoming epidemic.
Mayor Emanuel on the radio Thursday, for some reason trying to discourage the feds from investigating the Chicago miscarriage, threw in a familiar slur about President Trump’s remarks after the Charlottesville riot.Never mind that Mr. Trump’s plain words have now found their way even into Wikipedia’s account. When he spoke of “fine people” on both sides of the argument about Confederate statues, he explicitly said, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”
In an environment where even the media doesn’t always seem to care about truth, why shouldn’t Jussie Smollett, his family and his apparently broad support network hope his lie can prevail too?…”
Though the author’s entire essay is worthy of endorsement, his point about The Left’s (i.e., Progressives of all stripes, including the MSM!) continuing deliberate misquoting and misrepresentation of The Donald’s Charlottesville comments deserve special emphasis.
Meanwhile, as Jenkins alluded to in his commentary, a city in dire need of cleansing, via Smollett’s fabled bleach or any other effective agent, is instead on the verge of celebrating another meaningless milestone:
“Rich San Francisco residents in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district have collected more than $60,000 after starting an online crowdsourcing campaign to wage a legal challenge against a proposed center for the city’s homeless.
The campaign, called “Safe Embarcadero for All,” was launched March 20 after San Francisco Mayor London Breed proposed a 200-bed homeless Navigation Centerin the city’s most desirable location, the Embarcadero along the coast of San Francisco Bay, earlier this month.
“The planned location for Mayor Breed’s #megashelter is home to thousands of families, visited by millions of tourists and at the center of some of San Francisco’s most iconic events – including the San Francisco Marathon, San Francisco Giants stadium and on one of the busiest bicyclist paths in the city,” reads the site posted by the group opposing the construction.
The campaign shamelessly raised over $60,000 and is on track to reach the desired $100,000 goal, with the money used to pay attorney Andrew Zacks, who often represents property owners, to help the dissatisfied “Not In My Backyard” residents in the neighborhood.
More than 130 people have chipped in, although many did so anonymously. The biggest donation came from an unknown resident who gave $10,000 to the cause.
A Fox News review of records found that multiple individuals – bank executives, professors and authors – who donated to the GoFundMe page have also contributed to Democratic political groups, including thousands of dollars to the Democratic National Committee, MoveOn, Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and other left-leaning organizations.
One of the donors, Jerome Dodson, who has since scrubbed his $1,000 contribution to the campaign, is reportedly a chairman of a “responsible investment fund” that seeks to make “a positive impact on society,” according to the Washington Free Beacon. The investment fund executive donated to Democratic candidates and groups over the years, including Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.“
Here’s the juice: if, as the article suggests, San Francisco authorities plan on using any portion of the Embarcadero to house the homeless, their hypocrisy to the contrary notwithstanding, the NIMBY’s have it right.
For as Al Czervik so eloquently observed…
…not to mention homeless shelters.
Thus, utilizing bay-front property to house incorrigible drug addicts would constitute a far bigger fiasco.
In other news from the purported Paradise by the Bay…
“A series of escalating attacks led to an elderly pro-life man being repeatedly viciously kicked on the sidewalk by a bicyclist in San Francisco, California, on March 19.Ron, who is a longtime campaign leader with the organization 40 Days For Life, was outside of a Planned Parenthood clinic when he was attacked.Previously, the attacker cut the group’s signature banner with a pair of scissors and knocked Ron and another volunteer to the ground.
This time, Ron attempted to stop the same attacker from stealing the sign by holding onto it and sticking the sign pole through the spokes of the man’s bike. He responded by pushing Ron to the ground with his bike, saying, “Old man, stay on the ground. Stay on the ground old man, unless you want to get hurt.” He immediately then started kicking Ron, and this is where the video ends so Ron’s companion could call 911.
…Planned Parenthood has not been helpful with apprehending Ron’s attacker, as Britton explains: “Planned Parenthood said that they would not give out their surveillance videos.” It’s also worth pointing out, and emphasizing here, that the unprovoked violence here came not from the pro-life activists, but from the pro-choice passerby.“
So much for the supposed…
…Spirit of the ’60s.
Moving from the Spirit of the ’60s to the Incomprehensibility of the ’70s, in today’s installment of the EnvironMental Moment, we present a brilliant bit of legal reasoning to rival Roe v. Wade:
“President Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he reversed bans on offshore drilling in vast parts of the Arctic Ocean and dozens of canyons in the Atlantic Ocean, a U.S. judge said in a ruling that restored the Obama-era restrictions. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in a decision late Friday threw out Trump’s executive order that overturned the bans that comprised a key part of Obama’s environmental legacy.
Presidents have the power under a federal law to remove certain lands from development but cannot revoke those removals, Gleason said. “The wording of President Obama’s 2015 and 2016 withdrawals indicates that he intended them to extend indefinitely, and therefore be revocable only by an act of Congress,” said Gleason, who was nominated to the bench by Obama…”
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these four beauties from, respectively, Balls Cotton, Mark Foster, Mark Tapscott and Wink Martindale:
Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with the So You REALLY Want to Have an HONEST Conversation About Racism?!? segment, and this just in from Savannah:
“Race was front and center on Wednesday night during a meeting coordinated to garner support for just one black candidate in Savannah’s mayoral election. With signs stating “Black press only” on the doors of the church where the meeting was held, white reporters were barred from entry, while black reporters for at least two television stations were permitted inside.
The event was coordinated by the Rev. Clarence Teddy Williams, owner of the consulting firm, The Trigon Group, who declined to discuss the entry policy.
Former Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson declined to comment before going inside, as did Chatham County Commissioner Chester Ellis. “This is not my idea,” Ellis said.
Savannah Alderman Estella Shabazz, who also attended, said that she had once owned a newspaper and she was a member of the black press, but she declined to comment on the policy barring white reporters from going inside.
While notes were allowed, photos, video and audio recordings were prohibited during the event, according to Stephen Moody, an African-American reporter with WJCL, who was allowed entry. Another reporter from WSAV who attended the meeting was told she could stay because she was black, Moody said.
Shirley James, the African-American publisher of the black-owned Savannah Tribune, was also seen going into the meeting.
But here’s the best part:
Savannah Alderman Van Johnson, who is one of three African-Americans who have stated their intention to run for mayor, said afterwards that during the meeting he had talked about his vision for an inclusive and progressive Savannah.
With regards to the discriminatory policy at the door, Johnson said he believed people have the right to assemble and determine the rules of their assembly.“
Bottomline?!? The Left wants an honest conversation about racism about as much as Hillary craves an unbiased investigation of her private email server.
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