| Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page |
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April 7, 2008 |
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Story #1: Liberalism at Work: New Zealand to Tax Butter
RUSH: You want to hear how liberalism works incrementally, slowly but surely? This is from New Zealand, a New Zealand newspaper website. "A top public health expert is calling for a health tax on butter, saying it's 'pure, natural poison' and as bad as cigarettes. New Zealanders eat more butter per head than any other nationality and Auckland University epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson says that's why our cholesterol levels are also among the world's highest. 'We have a health tax on alcohol and cigarettes and there should be a health tax on butter,'" and that, my friends, is exactly how liberalism works: in little steps. We tax cigarettes, so why not? Tax candy and crackers and popcorn and butter and beef and Doritos, and all these things that liberals think are no good for you. "It's the most poisonous commonly consumed food in New Zealand," says this researcher. Butter! "It's about the purest form of saturated fat you can eat and it has no protein and no calcium. Butter has had all the good things taken out and just left the poison." This is who they are. It's a poison! Only milk from the cow is older than butter, in terms of the whole cow process. So I guess milk's bad, too, which they've tried to say it is.
Story #2: Danger: Gravel Can Cause Cancer
RUSH: Hey, folks, do you know that now gravel can cause cancer? From Killdeer, North Dakota:
"The sounds of children playing baseball has been silenced at one ball field in this western North Dakota city. Officials fear the ground itself is simply too unsafe. The ballpark, one of two in this town of about 700 people, is covered with crushed gravel containing erionite, a mineral found in the chalky white rock mined from the nearby Killdeer Mountains. The rock, used for decades on everything from gravel roads to flower beds, contains fibers that can collect in the lungs of people who breathe it, health officials say. Steve Way, a federal Environmental Protection Agency coordinator, said studies have shown that erionite causes cancer in lab rats, though the mineral is not regulated by his agency." Gravel. I don't know who's snorting the gravel. Who's getting down there and breathing it? I don't know whose doing this. "State Rep. Shirley Meyer told federal and state officials at the meeting that Dunn County now will have to look outside its borders for gravel...
"'It seems to me like you're making a mountain out of a molehill with what little data you have,' Meyer told EPA... 'The taxpayers in this county are having a tough time trying to swallow this.' ... 'I'm 80 years old and it hasn't killed me yet,' said Milton Johnson, who ranches in the Killdeer Mountains. 'They can test my lungs if they want. I've been breathing it all my life.' Gary Jepson, another rancher in the area, called the worries over erionite 'one of those sky-is-falling kind of deals.'" Just remember saccharin. It also caused cancer in lab rats. You know what kind? Bladder cancer. They injected these poor rats with a lifetime equivalent in one dose of the amount of saccharin found in an average diet soda. They said, "Look at the cancer!" and they banned it. You had to go sneak it in from Canada. Of course now, saccharin is legal even though there are better substitutes for it. "Western North Dakota could have 'hundreds of miles' of roads paved with gravel containing erionite... Paving them with asphalt would be too costly..." They want to pave over all the roads now.
Liberalism, Big Government Nannies all over this country, ladies and gentlemen, and this is how they work it. They tell you that you are going to die -- and in order to see to it that you don't die and don't get sick, we have to spend X numbers of billions to either rebuild these ballparks or these highways, or cancel events at the ballparks because of the children, and so forth. Now, what does this do? Drip, drip, drip, drab, drab, drab, it convinces way too many Americans that government is their sole protector -- it is out for their best interests -- and that government will protect them, that government will keep them safe, and government will make sure they don't get sick, and ditto for their children. A lot of people... This causes what? Causes people to abrogate responsibility, turn it over to the Nanny State. It's hideous. This is why you don't compromise with these people! This is why you don't walk across the aisle and try to get along with them unless you can convince them that they're stupid, and this is nannyism, and it has no place, and it's just a bunch of people in bureaucracies with way too much time on their hands. It's sort of like politely slapping somebody in the face and saying, "Will you get some sense about you? Please talk common sense here instead of bureaucratese and liberalism all over the place?"
 Story #3: Ferret-Like Paul Krugman Rips Biofuel Scam
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, we're all experiencing higher food prices and higher gasoline prices, and in some places around the world, food has become a crisis. Food prices, because of the effect on supply, is causing riots in some parts of the world. I'm holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a column from today's New York Times by the ferret-like Paul Krugman. He does, he looks like a ferret, a weasel. He's an economist, ostensibly, he's a huge lib, and his whole column today rips the hell out of biofuels and ethanol. Now, what does liberalism do to people? Liberalism creates a crisis, in this case global warming, and says, "We need energy independence and we need to conserve because oil is destroying the planet." And people who pay attention to this get sucked into it and they believe it, and they get depressed, and they lose their own free will. They become prisoners to the negative, nonstop doom and gloom reported by Drive-By Media day in and day out. They hear about magic cure-alls, in this case an alternative fuel, ethanol. They want to matter. They want their lives to have meaning, because liberalism has stripped their lives of any meaning.
They place all of their meaning in government, all their hope in government, all their hope in politicians. They buy into all this because they want to help. They want to save the planet. They think that we can achieve perfection on earth in the form of utopia, and they sit around all depressed and dispirited waiting for it to happen, buying into all of these crises and hoaxes. Mr. Krugman writes, "These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there's another world crisis underway -- and it's hurting a lot more people. I'm talking about the food crisis. Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans -- but they're truly devastating in poor countries, where food often accounts for more than half a family's spending. There have already been food riots around the world. Food-supplying countries, from Ukraine to Argentina, have been limiting exports in an attempt to protect domestic consumers, leading to angry protests from farmers -- and making things even worse in countries that need to import food. How did this happen? The answer is a combination of long-term trends, bad luck -- and bad policy.
"Where the effects of bad policy are clearest, however, is in the rise of demon ethanol and other biofuels. The subsidized conversion of crops into fuel was supposed to promote energy independence and help limit global warming. But this promise was, as TIME magazine bluntly put it, a 'scam.'" Yeah, we called it a scam long before TIME Magazine did, in an otherwise very puff piece on global warming and the hoax, nevertheless referred to the subsidized conversion of crops into fuel as a scam. Krugman writes, "This is especially true of corn ethanol: even on optimistic estimates, producing a gallon of ethanol from corn uses most of the energy the gallon contains. But it turns out that even seemingly 'good' biofuel policies, like Brazil’s use of ethanol from sugar cane, accelerate the pace of climate change by promoting deforestation. ... What should be done?" Mr. Krugman asks near the end, wringing his hands. "What should be done? The most immediate need is more aid to people in distress: the UN's World Food Program put out a desperate appeal for more funds." This is where Mr. Krugman's liberalism surfaces. What should be done? More aid to people in distress! The UN's World Food Program put out a desperate appeal for more money.
"We also need a pushback against biofuels, which turn out to have been a terrible mistake. But it's not clear how much can be done. Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past." Mr. Krugman and the rest of you liberals, it doesn't have to be this way. It does not have to be a disaster. Just stop the stupid policy! It doesn't have to be a disaster. This is just the tip of the iceberg, if more and more people start buying into this global warming hoax and then start creating policies to deal with it. Let biofuels be your lesson. You think global warming and its fix are going to lead to everything being cheaper and everything being just Kumbaya? It's just the opposite.
Story #4: Unintended Consequences of Mass. Health Care
RUSH: As you know, universal medical coverage, universal health coverage is the law in Massachusetts. And, as is the case, with practically every liberal do-gooder idea, and I know Mitt Romney did this, but this is what happens when you accept the premise of the left. We need universal health coverage, says the left. And the conservatives go, well, yes, but we don't need it your way, we're going to tweak it, we're going to make this happen and this. Still, when you accept the premise, and just tweak it, you end up with unintended consequences, like the destruction of the black family in the Great Society in the war on poverty. Countless other examples of unintended consequences: ethanol and biofuels, to save the planet -- ha-ha-ha-ha-ha -- now people are starving and rioting because of the price of food. In Massachusetts, the requirement that everybody have health insurance and that everybody go to the doctor has had an unintended consequence.
"Since last year, when the landmark law took effect, about 340,000 of Massachusetts' estimated 600,000 uninsured have gained coverage. Many are now searching for doctors and scheduling appointments for long-deferred care." In western Massachusetts, in Amherst, a doctor by the name of Katherine Atkinson, family physician doctor, has a 3,000-patient practice, which was closed to new patients for several years, has taken on 50 newcomers since she hired a part-time nurse practitioner in November. About a third were newly insured, Dr. Atkinson said. Just north of here in Athol, the doctors at North Quabbin Family Physicians are now seeing four to six new patients a day, up from one or two a year ago." But the problem is that there aren't enough doctors to handle all of these people, who were required to go get health insurance and are now going to the doctor. For example, Dr. Katherine Atkinson, her next opening for a physical is not until May of 2009, a year from now. For a standard physical, she is booked through 2009.
A doctor says, "It's a recipe for disaster. It's great that people have access to health care, but now we've got to find a way to give them access to preventive services. The point of this legislation was not to get people episodic care," meaning, the point of this was not to make sure that everybody, when they have an episode of illness, goes to the doctor. It was to get 'em preventive care so they wouldn't get episodic illness, which of course is absurd! You cannot prevent people getting the cold or the flu, you can take steps, but people are going to get sick. Well, here's the thing. When you insure everybody in the country, you just take a look what's happening in Massachusetts, and this is in the New York Times today, by the way, this is a New York Times story, the unintended consequences of universal coverage. It's straining the ability of patients, citizens in Massachusetts to get coverage 'cause, you know what? There aren't enough family practitioners. People have gone into specialties. Most of the people going into family practice are Asians and Indians who are immigrating to the United States and going to med school for that purpose. So there aren't enough doctors in Massachusetts to handle this. This woman has taken on an additional 45 to 50 cases, and her next physical, she's scheduling her next physical -- the last one she scheduled was May of 2009. It's happening in a lot of places over Massachusetts.
So the unintended consequences is a doctor shortage. I think I know what you're thinking, "But, Rush, but, Rush, I mean people get sick and they have to go to the doctor." They do. What were they doing when they didn't have health insurance? They're still getting sick. Were they not going to the doctor? Maybe not. And were they dying? Wasn't in the news if they were. Folks, I'm talking economics here. I'm not talking health. I'm talking economics. If there were 600,000 uninsured, and they've now insured over 380,000 of that 600,000, and those 380,000 are now taking advantage, these are the people that couldn't afford it, so the state bought it for them in one regard or one way or another or a percentage of it. Now they're going to the doctor left and right. But the market for health care did not account for this many new patients, aren't enough doctors. These people all of a sudden taking advantage of having insurance are going to the doctor. But they got sick before this. What happened to them? Apparently, they got well. Apparently, they recovered. We didn't hear about deaths, unless Mrs. Clinton starts telling lies about deaths again, like in Ohio.
So let's imagine this happens nationally, universal coverage. By the way, the John Edwards plan, the Obama plan, not just requires you to get insurance. Ha. It requires you to go to the damn doctor. Stay healthy. Go get checked up and preventative care so you don't put as much strain on the system. Do you realize we get to the nut of this story at the end of it: "Dr. Atkinson, 45, said she paid herself a salary of $110,000 last year. Her insurance reimbursements often do not cover her costs, she said. 'I calculated that every time I have a Medicare patient it's like handing them a $20 bill when they leave,' she said. 'I never went into medicine to get rich, but I never expected to feel as disrespected as I feel. Where is the incentive for a practice like ours?'" A family practice? She is so busy, you call in and want a physical, you're going to be booked in May of 2009. She's making $110,000 a year. So imagine this happening in the whole nation, universal health coverage, you gotta have insurance, and you gotta go to the doctor. What happens if there aren't enough doctors in family practice to handle the kind of medicine we're talking about here? Well, surprised you ask, folks. It's very simple. What you do is you simply go to the med schools and you tell students there, "Sorry, you're not going into anesthesia, you're gonna be general interest, you're gonna be practitioner, family practitioner, you're going to be a family doctor if you want to go into medicine, because we have a shortage." "Rush, they can't do that, they can't tell doctors --" they've just taken over the health care business.
Don't forget the premise. They've just taken it over, universal coverage. You want to bet that they won't tell doctors where they have to go? That was part of the original Clinton plan. By the way, you think doctors who are reading this story are going to want to stream into Massachusetts? You think family practice doctors are going to want to go in there? "Yeah, Rush, because there's a glut." Not if you're so busy that you're scheduling patients a year out and you're paying yourself a salary, you're grossing yourself $110,000 out of your corporation. Ain't going to happen. Unintended consequence of universal coverage in Massachusetts, in the New York Times today. Liberalism. It just bites you every time it gets a chance, and people bend over forward and let it. It frustrates the hell out of me.
Story #5: Reserving Thoughts on Condi Rice for VP Talk
RUSH: Hey, folks. Yes, I've heard about Condoleezza Rice. Dan Senor -- Republican strategerist and husband of Campbell Brown of CNN -- is suggesting that Condoleezza Rice is quietly advocating to be McCain's vice presidential nominee, and George Will apparently on ABC yesterday confirmed that he's heard the same thing, which kind of surprises me because her public statements consistently have been that she did not want any part of it. Now she's asking for it, or lobbying for it, apparently. No thought of it yet, folks. No thought whatsoever. Frankly, I'm focused on a whole lot of things other than that. They're somewhat related. All right! All right, I'll just be honest. I don't think it's going to matter. It might help win, but I don't think it's going to matter. We're in a circumstance... Ah, it does matter who wins, but just a little. I need to reserve this. I need to think about this in a more organized way, because I don't want to send you outta here depressed today, because I'm not depressed. As you know, I'm constantly optimistic.
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