Tag Archives: New York Times

Health Care Costs Drop 50%!

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

“Health insurance has suddenly become affordable in New York,” said Elisabeth Benjamin, Vice President for health initiatives with the Community Service Society of New York.

“It’s not bargain-basement prices, but we’re going from Bergdorf’s to Filene’s here. The extraordinary decline in New York’s insurance rates for individual consumers demonstrates the profound promise of the Affordable Care Act,” she added.

Well, since everyone in New York seems to be right all the time, just as in the NY Times recent screed against the new initiatives and policies undertaken by the GOP majorities in the state legislature and from the Governor’s Mansion, we guess whatever New Yorkers say about everything has to be true.

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Can Government ‘Fix’ the Economy?

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

There’s several great scenes in the classic ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ where Kevin Kline as the dim-witted narcissistic con-man gets riled up when someone calls him ‘stupid.’

Generally, we have found in life that we won’t follow the lead of someone who calls us ‘stupid’. On the other hand, we have also found that it is very difficult to get people to follow our lead or to even like us when we call them ‘stupid’.

Life just doesn’t lend itself to calling people ‘stupid’ and getting away with it.

Unless you are Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman who somehow has kept his job writing for the New York Times and his Nobel Prize despite having none of Continue reading →

The Need To Be Angry

BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change (TCBMag.com)

A businessman came up to me the other day to tell me he was an avid reader of my blog. I implored him not to toy with my affections, but he persisted. “No, really, I read your blog every week so that I know what I’m supposed to be pissed about.”

As Goldie Wilson, the future mayor of Hill Valley, exclaimed while sweeping the floors of Lou’s Malt Shop, “I like the sound of that!”

Kind of. Continue reading →

Watergate Lessons Not Learned (Part I)

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

The leaks of classified information from the Obama Administration in recent weeks raise the specter of a Watergate scandal and lessons not learned.

There have been at least five different incidents in which it appears people in the White House or the Obama Administration, or people with their sanction, have leaked highly classified information to the media, presumably to make Obama look tough on terrorism.

Each incident has its own set of dubious circumstances. Each has its own disturbing story of compromised national security, the endangerment of professionals in clandestine services, the abuse and betrayal of our friends and allies, and the abuse of the White House and other government offices for partisan advantage.

The five latest incidents were: Continue reading →

Obama Ship is Sinking

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The holes in the Obama Administration continue to show the greatest inherent problem to the President’s re-election: These people are incompetent.

At almost every level, in almost every issue the Obama Administration is barely keeping afloat. The recent leaks that Obama himself approves using drones to kill specific targets was first brought light in a New York Times piece: “Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war.”

Imagine the apoplexy among the studio hosts on MSNBC if George W. Bush had been found riffling “baseball cards” deciding who should live, who should die and in which order.

They would be “Leaning Forward” so far they’d be staring at their own backsides – as unpleasant an image as that might be. Continue reading →

Apple, Corporate Taxes, and Common Sense

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple (neé Apple Computer) “is the most valuable company” in the world. On the heels of its quarterly report last week, stock in Apple reached nearly $620 per share before settling back to end the week at $602.

The WSJ reported that Apple “posted a 94% profit jump to $11.6 billion and a 58.9% revenue increase to $39.2 billion.”

This is not a stock picking column, and that is about everything I know about the stock market, but I wanted to tell you that so that what follows made more sense.

The New York Times published a long piece looking at how Apple cleverly, but legally, has built a tax strategy that saves it billions of dollars. The Times reported that “the company paid cash taxes of $3.3 billion around the world on its reported profits of $34.2 billion last year, a tax rate of 9.8 percent.” Continue reading →

No October Surprise A Surprise

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

This summer I was convinced that in September, the Democrats would launch an election-year counter-offensive, an October surprise that would plug the drain of Democratic polling numbers and slow the slide of a lot of Democratic candidates.

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Media Buy Into Boehner Bashing

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

The national Democratic Party’s hierarchy, led by the President himself, inaugurated a campaign a few weeks ago to put a negative face on the Republican Party and its candidates. The face they chose was that of House Republican Leader John Boehner. And so began the Boehner bashing.

The President mentioned Leader Boehner an incredible eight times in a speech the first week in September. Other Democratic leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, followed suit.

Then the media joined in.

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Burning of the Koran, Another View

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

I have a little different take on the plans of the Rev. Terry Jones to burn Korans on Saturday.

I disagree with the President that it is a teachable moment.

I disagree with Mayor Bloomberg that it is protected under the First Amendment and should therefore be tolerated.

I disagree with John Feehery that it may reflect another step down the path of “religious intolerance, hatred and extreme sectarianism.”

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The Decline and Fall of The Washington Post

BY JOHN FEEHERY

From the Feehery Theory

“Politics and Film”, a local film festival in Washington D.C., re-ran the epic movie “All The President’s Men”, and then held a discussion with Bob Woodward, one of the protagonists depicted in the show.

In the movie, Woodward and his sidekick Carl Bernstein, risked personal safety and career advancement investigating the malfeasance of the Nixon Administration, and ultimately created the dynamic that led to the President’s resignation.

No matter where you are on the political spectrum, the movie is terrific. Great action, great plot, great storyline and great acting all make this one of the most interesting movies about politics in history.

What the movie really highlighted was how courageous it was for the Post to investigate a President.

Fast forward three and some decades to the present version of the Washington Post.

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