Mark Hemingway

Rich people need FHA loans, too

So let me get this straight, the government created the housing market crash by insuring a lot of really expensive, little-to-no money down mortgages for people that couldn't afford them. Now that the real estate market is in the dumps, the government is trying to encourage recovery by insuring a lot of really expensive, little-to-no money down mortgages for people who don't need the help?: In January, Mike Rowland was so broke that he had to raid his retirement savings to move here from Boston. A week ago, he and a couple of buddies bought a two-unit apartment building for nearly a million dollars. They had only a little cash to bring to the table but, with the federal government...

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Won't somebody think of the trustafarians?

Want to feel better about yourself? Then read this Washington Post story, "Grappling with a wealth of guilt: Young heirs seek moral balance between inherited windfalls, social responsibilities": The dinner in Adams Morgan was held at the home of a private school teacher who inherited $1.5 million. It was a rare chance for members of the Resource Generation, a nonprofit group whose 35-and-younger members devote themselves to philanthropic work for social justice, to talk about their guilt and their views on social inequalities without fear of eye-rolling from people who might view them as spoiled rich kids playing at helping the downtrodden. No eye-rolling? I'm afraid that's...

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About Henry Paulson's new book...

It seems that former Treasury secretary Henry Paulson has a new book coming out. It's supposed to be an inside account of the collapse of the global banking system. Though the book might run into some legal trouble, as I believe O.J. Simpson was the first to use the title "If I Did...

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Does Petraeus have political ambitions?

Without question, the American Enterprise Institute is one of the most influential think tanks in D.C. The joke is that AEI's building in downtown Washington houses more conservative intellectuals than most European nations. Every year AEI hosts a black-tie annual dinner -- referred to colloquially as "the conservative prom" -- where they bestow an award on a leading conservative statesman or intellectual who delivers the evening's keynote address. Guess who's headlining the dinner in 2010: General David H. Petraeus to Receive 2010 Irving Kristol Award FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 19, 2009 AEI President Arthur Brooks announced today that General David H. Petraeus will be...

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Citigroup still hasn't ruled out severing ties with ACORN

Citigroup, which has given ACORN millions of dollars over the years via its charitable foundation, still isn't sure the organization is up to no good. This is despite multiple videos of employees enabling underage sex-slavery, the cover-up by top organizational officers of a multi-million dollar embezzlement, and the Louisiana Attorney General raiding their offices on charges of tax fraud. But Citigroup doesn't want to rush to judgment here: Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit isn’t ruling out reinvesting in scandal-plagued ACORN, the left-wing community group whose employees were caught on a hidden camera earlier this year allegedly giving advice on how to set up a prostitution ring...

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Big Labor's post-2009 election strategy: Unions more aggressive on the regulatory front

In a previous post, Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and National Right to Work Committee, noted that Democrats' waning political fortunes might limit what Big Labor can do with it's legislative strategy. The Examiner also spoke with James Sherk, Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy at the Heritage Foundation, who observes that, with a lack of legislative support from Democrats, unions might shift their focus to altering the regulatory landscape in a way that's beneficial for them but dubious for the rest of America. Like Mix, Sherk doesn't see the unions curtailing their political aggressiveness. "Most likely I would expect to see them double...

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Who's handling protocol for the White House?

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had frontpager, "Obama's China Summit Ends On Awkward Diplomatic Note." Accompanying the story was a photo of the President touring the Fobidden City with a few dozen Chinese diplomats and politicians. All of the Chinese leaders in the photo are wearing dark suits and ties -- the President is wearing an open collared shirt and a leather jacket. The President's out-of-place attire isn't the "awkward note" referred to in the headline, but it sure seems that way. Coming on the heels of the President's deep bow to the Japanese emperor -- while trying to shake his hand at the same time -- one has to wonder, who exactly is handling...

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Big Labor's post-2009 election strategy: Will a card check vote happen soon?

Dampened Democratic support for the union agenda could mean that Big Labor press even harder for a vote on card check legislation in the near future, says a leading union watchdog. With resounding victories in the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia and 2010 Congressional elections looking bleaker for Democrats by the minute, unions are no doubt reassessing their political strategy. The Examiner contacted Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and National Right to Work Committee, to see how he thought the changing political climate will affect how unions are approaching perhaps their signature issue: Card check legislation. According...

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The ongoing persecution of Sarah Palin

According to Gawker, "Palin's Campaign Chaperone Eviscerates Her for Lying in Book." The campaign chaperone in question is Nicole Wallace, who went on Rachel Maddow's show last night to make a flurry of accusations against Palin. The problem here is that Nicole Wallace is simply not credible. Along with McCain campaign top aide Steve Schmidt, Wallace was widely presumed to behind anonymous leaks smearing Palin calling her a "whack job" and suggesting she had postpartum depression. Additionally, this summer, I unearthed internal McCain campaign emails that showing that Wallace was involved in peddling false stories to the New York Times involving other McCain campaign...

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Open Government 2.0: Google to make legal opinions available

Here's some really positive news for people that care about transparency and open government. Google is going to make legal decisions publicly accessible: Starting today, we're enabling people everywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. You can find these opinions by searching for cases (like Planned Parenthood v. Casey), or by topics (like desegregation) or other queries that you are interested in. For example, go to Google Scholar, click on the "Legal opinions and journals" radio button, and try the query separate but equal. Your search results will include links to cases...

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Joe Biden: Fake stimulus jobs a 'small problem'

Worried about all those non-existent stimulus jobs in the 43rd congressional district of Freedonia? Have no fear, Joe Biden is on the case: "He thinks it is a relatively small problem involving a small number of jobs that exist, but which were entered into Recovery.gov with the wrong coding and therefore the wrong address," Biden spokesman Jay Carney said in an email. "He expects the problem will be fixed quickly." Small number of jobs?! David Freddoso and I determined there were some 75,000 bogus jobs -- over ten percent of the number of jobs the administration claims the stimulus created -- just from compiling the numbers in a very limited number of media reports....

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Democrats afraid to call new stimulus bill a 'stimulus'

Good news! Another stimulus. It's sure to work this time: Democrats in the House of Representatives aim to pass job-creating legislation before the end of the year to ease double-digit unemployment levels that threaten the economic recovery, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on Tuesday. Specifics being proposed include: Among the items under consideration: * A transportation bill that could cost up to $500 billion * A tax credit for businesses that create jobs * Assistance to state governments, which otherwise would lay off teachers, police and other employees as they cope with plunging tax revenues and rising social spending * Another extension of unemployment benefits, which...

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Memo to banks: Don't lend money to the SEIU

The SEIU seems hellbent on doing what they can to put public pressure on Bank of America. They've campaigned incessantly all year to shame the bank. Take this entry from today on the SEIU's blog: We need to tell Bank of America to stop with the tired excuses and choose a CEO that will use the tax dollars we're giving them to get our country back on track. Tell them to start lending to small businesses again. Tell them to stop foreclosing on the homes of struggling families. And tell them to never, ever hire another CEO like Ken Lewis that puts Wall Street profits ahead of Main Street families That link goes to sign a petition demanding the bank comply with a number of left-leaning...

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Union corruption at the New York Times

This morning, police raided the printing plant of the New York Times on charges of union corruption. From the paper's own website: The police raided the printing plant of The New York Times on Tuesday morning as part of what appeared to be a larger investigation into the union that delivers newspapers in the metropolitan area. A warrant was served at the newspaper’s printing plant in College Point, Queens, by New York City police officers working in conjunction with the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, as investigators sought paperwork related to the work of the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union, which bundles and trucks newspapers across the...

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UPDATED: 76,779 jobs 'not really created or saved' by the Stimulus (and counting)

View Bogus jobs 'created or saved' by the Stimulus in a larger map 11/19 UPDATE: We've added thousands more jobs in several dozen cities to our not really "created or saved" stimulus jobs map. The total number of jobs we have found to be "not really created or saved" now approaches 80,000. Several new states and the Territory of Guam have new entries. We will continue updating the map in the coming weeks. Most of the new pins on our interactive map represent such un-started, un-funded contracts, according to data taken from Recovery.gov. Because the Obama administration has been using its inflated claim of 640,000 jobs "created or saved" to make...

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Los Angeles Times smears GOP as obstructionist

The Los Angeles Times has a story up today on Obama's judicial appointments, or the lack thereof: For Obama judicial nominees, confirmation is slow process Senate Republicans have quietly used their minority power to block candidates to the lower federal courts. A showdown is set for Tuesday with Judge David Hamilton's nomination That pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the article, which might as well be a Democratic press release. Take these paragraphs: But liberal activists have voiced growing irritation that Republicans are quietly using their minority power to block Senate votes on Obama's judicial nominees. They note that during the Bush administration, Republicans...

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Why is Sarah Palin's book tour beginning in Grand Rapids?

It was announced that the first stop on Sarah Palin's book tour would be in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Wednesday. It seems to be an odd choice, but upon closer inspection, it's a decision that could be fraught with significance. Notably, Grand Rapids is the home town of powerful Michigan political power broker and Republican National Committee member Chuck Yob. When it was a announced that the McCain campaign would be pulling out of Michigan last fall before the election, Yob wrote a public letter begging the McCain campaign not to abandon the state and send Palin to campaign there. Palin twice publicly questioned the McCain campaign's decision to pull out of the state early -- an early...

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News reports: So far, more than 10 percent of stimulus jobs doubtful or imaginary (UPDATED)

More than ten percent of the jobs the Obama administration has claimed were "created or saved" by the $787 billion stimulus package are doubtful or imaginary, according to reports compiled from eleven major newspapers and the Associated Press. Based only on our analysis of stimulus media coverage in the last two weeks, The Examiner has created this interactive map to document exaggerated stimulus claims. The map, which will be updated as new revelations appear, currently reflects an exaggeration by the Obama administration of about 75,000 jobs, out of the 640,000 jobs supposedly "created or saved." The map reflects reports from The Wall Street Journal, The Boston...

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The question of the day

Powerline: Ask yourself this question: Suppose that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial results in an acquittal or a hung jury. Would the Obama administration really let him go? If so, they are crazy. If not, why are they holding the trial?...

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How ACORN destroyed the housing market

Over at the Wall Street Journal, there's a very interesting article that connects the dots between ACORN, the mortgage-lending-standard-destroying Community Reinvestment Act legislation, Fannie Mae and the eventual inflation and collapse of the housing bubble in last decade: As Allen Fishbein, currently an adviser for consumer policy at the Federal Reserve, has noted, Acorn and other community groups were informally deputized by then House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez to draft statutory language setting the law's affordable-housing mandates. Interim goals were set at 30% of the single-family mortgages purchased by Fannie and Freddie, and the Department of Housing and Urban...

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Is universal health care a winning issue politically?

Not...

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Big Labor and Big Government -- there's little difference

A new Heritage foundation study shows that while the percentage of the American workforce that is unionized is holding steady, there's actually a huge difference in the composition of those union workers. Private sector unions continue to dwindle, but public sector unionization is on the rise: Who do the words “union members” bring to mind? United Auto Workers building cars in Detroit? Teamsters truckers hauling freight? Steel workers in Pennsylvania? Not any more. Newly released numbers show that the actual face of today’s union movement is the teller at your local Department of Motorized Vehicles. Preliminary estimates of union membership this year show that most...

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One terrorist is not like the other

My better half caught a TV appearance by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham discussing the recent shooting spree at Fort Hood. Meacham, who's written entire books on the subject of religion, really ought to know better than this: MEACHAM: Here’s, for what it’s worth, here’s what I think: I think the president was right to say don’t jump to conclusions. We can now at least sort of hop up to one. And it is that this is an act of terrorism committed by someone — clearly a Muslim, clearly influenced to some extent, we don’t know yet what, by radical Islam. Let’s call it what it is. It is an act of terror, which is part of what we’ve been struggling...

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NYT dishonestly distances Biden from alleged corruption

Today's New York Times story on Peter W. Galbraith is a must read. Galbraith is a leading liberal hawk and former ambassador, as well as a former adviser to Senator John Kerry and Vice-President Joe Biden. It seems that Galbraith used his political influence to get rich off Iraqi oil money. The crux of the article is this: In the summer of 2005, he was also an adviser to the Kurdish regional government as Iraq wrote its Constitution — tough and sensitive talks not least because of issues like how Iraq would divide its vast oil wealth. Now Mr. Galbraith, 58, son of the renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith, stands to earn perhaps a hundred million or more dollars as a result...

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You won't have George W. Bush to kick around anymore...

Sadly, that someone would author this column was probably inevitable: "The Ft. Hood Massacre Is George Bush's...

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Harsh media reviews for House health care bill

"Falling Far Short of Reform," The New York Times Making the medical system more efficient is, in short, about saving lives and giving Americans a long overdue raise. It is arguably the single most important step that the federal government could take to improve people’s lives. And the bill that the House of Representatives passed last weekend simply does not get it done. "Health Savings? No One Knows," Politico: Barack Obama ran for president on a promise of saving the typical family $2,500 a year in lower health care premiums. But that was then. No one in the White House is making such a pledge now. It’s one of the most basic, kitchen-table...

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The return of lies, damned lies and stimulus jobs

The hits keep on coming. First we have a report from Washington state: New numbers released by the federal government Friday estimate that the federal stimulus package has helped create or save 34,500 total jobs in Washington, making it the state with the third-largest reported number of stimulus jobs behind California and New York. But there’s a caveat on those job creation numbers: 24,000 of them probably weren’t in danger in the first place. State officials used a chunk of stimulus money to cover paychecks for 24,000 teachers who were already contracted to finish out the school year. That money came from a pot of stimulus funds given to the state to help offset budget...

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Senate Majority Leader admits $787 billion stimulus a failure

Well, not exactly. But pretty close: Senate Democrats will take up a new job-creation bill in the wake of the 10.2 percent unemployment rate, Majority Leader Harry Reid told his colleagues Tuesday. Little is known about what kind of legislation Reid has in mind: Reid didn’t specify what would be in the bill, but he said that it was going to be “one of the priorities” for the Senate, Cardin added. Cardin said Reid offered no additional specifics, such as timing for a new jobs bill. However, the fact a new job creation bill will be a priority gives rise to speculation in the piece that the new Senate jobs bill could further delay cap-and-trade legislation. But again,...

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Today's New York Times Blackwater hit piece

As someone who has reported extensively on Blackwater and private military contractors, I know quite well that there are ethical issues and conduct by security-for-hire firms in Iraq and Afghanistan that merit close scrutiny. That, however, does not excuse The New York Times' A1 story today which alleges that Blackwater bribed Iraqi officials to silence criticism following a September 2007 incident where the firm was responsible for killing 17 Iraqi civilians. The New York Times' entire report is based on the allegations of two anonymous, disgruntled ex-employees. We get accounts such as this one, regarding former CIA counterterrorism chief and Blackwater employee Cofer Black: According...

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Pravda here we come!

Via Jim Geraghty, I see the state of New Hampshire has decided it's wise to finance a local newspaper: The state of New Hampshire is guaranteeing part of a loan to the new owner of the Claremont Eagle Times newspaper. Last Wednesday New Hampshire’s Executive Council approved without debate the "working capital loan guarantee," which will be administered by the state’s Business Finance Authority. The Valley News of Lebanon says the authority and the state would be liable for $187,500 of a $250,000 loan from the Connecticut River Bank to the paper’s owner, Eagle Printing. The story of this highly questionable arrangement was broken on the blog of a former...

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Bush transparency requirements lead to union revolt

The Denver United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union voted out its longstanding president, Ernie Duran. The election that led to Duran's ouster was largely about accusations of corruption: In 2007, Crisanta Duran was paid $133,410 and Ernie Duran's son, Ernie Duran III, was paid $134,378 as an executive staff member, according to Labor Department filings. The elder Duran earned $162,368 that year. "The nepotism was a big issue with the workers — Ernie hiring his family and putting them into high-paid positions," Cordova said. Allegations surfaced this year about misspent union funds. There are concerns about "his son's spending and whether or not it was...

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It was 20 years ago today...

the Berlin Wall finally fell and the collapse of Soviet Communism began in earnest. Despite what we knew about Soviet attrocities then -- and what we've learned since -- ignorance about the dangers of Communism still persist. In fact, that very topic is the subject of today's Examiner editorial. As if on cue, today's Washington Post provides spectacular example of the continued useful idiots on the Left who continue to romanticize communism. It concerns a handful of DC coffee shops called Busboys and Poets, that the Post accurately describes as "as a sort of lefty clubhouse -- a popular gathering place for Democratic causes and fundraisers." (Indeed, I've covered official...

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Even more lies, damned lies and stimulus jobs

Earlier this week, we discussed the White House's was claiming the "stimulus saves nine out of every five jobs." Then we noted how the White house was counting stimulus-funded payraises for government workers as jobs saved, because "If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job," according to a Department of Health and Human Services spokesman. Then we noted the reports of stimulus jobs being overcounted in Illinois and Wisconsin. Now the Sacramento Bee has taken a look at California's stimulus jobs numbers, and guess what?: Up to one-fourth of the 110,000 jobs reported as saved by federal stimulus money in California probably never were in danger,...

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Fannie Mae needs another $15 billion in emergency capital

Between yesterday's Ft. Hood shooting and the unemployment news, this story is bound to get lost in the shuffle. But it shouldn't: Fannie Mae, the mortgage buyer seized by regulators, plans to tap emergency U.S. capital for a fourth time this year, bringing its draws of taxpayer money to $60 billion as the company sees no immediate end to its losses. Fannie Mae will seek $15 billion in Treasury Department financing after posting an $18.9 billion third-quarter net loss, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late yesterday. The Washington-based company, which posted $101.6 billion in losses over the previous eight quarters, has already tapped $44.9 billion from the $200...

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Los Angeles Times' Ft. Hood report smears Army

When there's breaking news, especially as something as sensitive as yesterday's killing spree at Ft. Hood one can understand why the media would be cautious about confirming the details of the event. The journalistic mantra maybe "get it first but get it right," but deference should always be given to the latter over the former. But yesterday's Los Angeles Times report on the shooting appears to have let political correctness get in the way of the truth. Even though it was apparent early on that the shooter was a Muslim, nowhere in the Los Angeles Times' report did the words "Muslim" or "Islam" appear. As it turns out, the shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan,...

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Support for health care reform plummeting among independents

On the heels of an Ipsos/McClatchy poll showing the public 49/39 against health care reform, Mickey Kaus wonders why health care reform is becoming more unpopular. According to the poll, support for health reform has dropped 7 percent among Democrats -- but it's also dropped a whopping 15 percent among independents. Given how independents broke strongly for the GOP on Tuesday, it's hard to read these poll trends as anything less than ominous for congressional...

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Democratic health care accounting gimmicks exposed

I've written at length about how Democrats are hiding the real health care price tag through some dubious accounting. And now two former high ranking Department of Health and Human Services officials -- Ben Sasse and Jeffrey Anderson -- are speaking out: First, we need to get past the misleading accounting games. Each bill is routinely “scored” for its 10-year costs from 2010-19. Yet this includes several years when the spending wouldn’t yet have kicked in. According to the Congressional Budget Office, fully 99.9 percent of the Pelosi bill’s costs would hit from 2013 onward. Similarly, 98.3 percent of Reid’s spending would come after 2014. If you start the...

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Obama: When in doubt, blame Bush

With an unresolved strategy for the war in Afghanistan, the worst economy since the Great Depression, the White House facing intense criticism for an increasingly unpopular domestic agenda and Democrats reeling from resounding Republican electoral victories on Tuesday -- what does the president have to say about the state of affairs? How about "it's not my fault": A year after his historic election, President Barack Obama sought to remind Americans on Wednesday the biggest problems he is grappling with -- from the economy to the war in Afghanistan -- are the legacy of his predecessor, George W. Bush. [SNIP] He used the preamble of his speech to insist his administration had...

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More lies, damned lies and stimulus jobs

Yesterday, David Freddoso discussed an AP report showing the White House is engaged in some pretty deceptive math in making the case the stimulus bill is responsible for creating jobs. I concluded "much, much more scrutiny needs to be given to the jobs numbers coming out of the White House." Well, newspapers around the country are taking a look-see and the results coming in are damning. Over at The Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes has the rundown on reports from Chicago and Milwaukee. In both cities, local papers are finding the reports rife with errors grossly overcounting jobs in their area. Further, it appears that stimulus funds are being used to prop up bankrupt state...

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Lies, damned lies and stimulus jobs

David already discussed the White House's politically convienent penchant for overcounting stimulus jobs. it's one thing to be guilty of "persisting errors" in the data but -- it's another thing altogether to be goosing the stats: About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren't saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press. Instead, that figure includes more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren't saved. That type of accounting was found in...

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Stupid health care accounting tricks

One of the more dishonest aspects of the health care debate is the way the Democrats are trying to hide the true cost of health reform legislation. When the Congressional Budget Office "scores" a piece of legislation to determine the cost, they do so over an immediate ten year horizon. In order to make health care legislation sound cheaper than it is, the Senate health care bill begins collecting major tax increases and fees immediately and delays the bill's major spending provision for four years. So cost projections bandied about in media reports are taken from from 2009 to 2019 and appear substanially cheaper than when the legislation's spending is in full effect from 2014 to...

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The Washington Post doubles down on its arrogance

After Bob McDonnell's drubbing of Democrat Creigh Deeds, The Washington Post should be humbled considering the paper waged what can only be seen as a politically motivated crusade to make the race about social issues discussed in McDonnell's decades-old college thesis. This was clearly a side issue compared to the economic issues the McDonnell campaign was emphasizing. In fact, earlier today I wrote, "With McDonnell's resounding win tonight, perhaps the Post will think twice about putting its credibility on the line before making itself the opposition research arm of Virginia Democrats. But don't bet on it." Don't bet on it? Even my cynical view of the paper's political...

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Last night's big loser is...

...The Washington Post. While political analysts will be picking apart tonight's race for days to come, it's worth noting that Bob McDonnell's victory in the Virginia governor's race is also a media story. It's one thing for a newspaper to exhibit a certain political viewpoint -- that's to be expected. But the Post's shameless harping on the next Virginia governor's decades-old college thesis as proof that he was a secret misogynist was beyond the pale. Perhaps Post felt emboldened by their success at smearing George Allen in his race Senate against Jim Webb, where the paper hammered the dubious assertion that Allen used a bizarre racial slur. In fact, in September the Examiner's...

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Health reform bill to pay for 'prayer treatments'?

The Los Angeles Times reports: A little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses. The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist. The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments -- which substitute for or supplement medical treatments -- on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against "religious and spiritual healthcare....

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Oregon officials lying about cost of environmental measures

Thanks to large influxes of new residents from out-of-state, Oregon has been tilting leftward politically over the last few decades, much to the chagrin of many long-term residents. Further, Portland has become the laboratory for every new and allegedly forward-thinking urban planning and environmental measure that social scientists can dream up. The problem is that the state's new-found love of progressive policies often comes with a hefty price tag. And what's worse, state officials have been caught red-handed hiding the cost of one of the Democratic governor's signature environmental initiatives. According to The Oregonian: State officials deliberately underestimated the cost of Gov....

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Jeremiah Wright: He's Baaack!

Halloween may be behind us, but the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is one political zombie that keeps rising from the dead to haunt President Obama. Video has just surfaced of of Wright speaking in September at the sixtieth anniversary gala of Monthly Review, a socialist publication. In his remarks, Wright bragged of his support of communists in Central America and the Libyan government. He further praised Monthly Review saying, "You dispel all the negative images we have been programmed to conjure up with just the mention of that word socialism or Marxism" and referred to America as "the land of greed and home of the slave." Also noteworthy is the fact that Wright...

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What's in the House Health Care Bill? More Bureaucracy!

Everyone on Capitol Hill is scrambling to find out what exactly is contained in the House's nearly 2,000 page health care bill. The House Republican Conference has put together an extensive list of all the new boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs conatained in the bill -- and the list runs to 111 items. Some highlights: 10. Mechanism for insurance risk pooling to be established by Health Choices Commissioner (Section 306(b), p. 194) 18. Demonstration program providing reimbursement for "culturally and linguistically appropriate services" (Section 1222, p. 617) 32. Demonstration program for approved teaching health centers with respect to Medicare GME...

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