Think of the fun you could have next time! Ask them if they would like to see the police and firefighters disbanded. We’d have roving “police” who act on behalf of the insured.

If you need the police, and you don’t have Copsurance, you get a bill. In cash strapped cities, we could all wear arm bands signifying our level of insurance, so the police know they should act (less they lose money saving someone from a mugger).

Same with Firefighters. We could paint the houses that have firefighters insurance red? I mean, if someone is careless enough to live in a place that gets hit by lightening, why should i have to pay to put the fire out?

What about snow removal? Clearly, the street should be responsible for their own snow removal. Socialized snow removal is downright communist.

When the talk turns to socialized medicine I often think of the socialized education we have in this country. And doesn’t the nurse who said she doesn’t want to pay for someone else’s health care realize she is doing just that with the insurance she has?

Privately owned insurance companies, health, liability or whatever are an oxymoron. Insurance purportedly spreads risk over the society, but the profit motive acting against that intention, inspires insurers to limit risk.

Some insurers notified customers in the Eastern US they are eliminating hurricane coverage because the Eastern US hasn’t had a hurricane in twenty or so years and one is due. Forgotten are the premiums paid in those twenty years supposedly to cover just such an eventuality. Insurance companies keep them.

It is difficult for even liberals to get their heads around, but free market capitalism has a lot more wrong than right, but without understanding why people choose “me” over “we”, we will continue to generate more heat than light.

GOP Rep. Eric Cantor has just revealed on his Web site that he’s planning on introducing the following add-on measure to the bill later today:

Today, we will be offering an amendment to the legislation to clarify that nothing in the bill “shall be construed to prohibit the intelligence community from conducting surveillance needed to prevent Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, or any other foreign terrorist organization…from attacking the United States or any United States person.”

Cantor is presenting this as an effort to determine whether Dems really want to protect America or not. “Let’s put all Members of Congress on the record,” he writes in a post accompaning the amendment. “Which do they care more about, pleasing their MoveOn.org liberal base or making sure America is safe and secure?”

I think Cantor has a great idea. And I’d suggest going him one better by proposing an amendment to his amendment stating that “nothing is the forgoing amendment shall be construed to prevent the Constitution of the United States of America, nor its Bill of Rights, nor any law such as FISA that’s intended to amplify and/or protect those rights.”

The purpose of that amendment to the amendment would be to put Members of Congress, e.g., congressman Cantor, on the record as to whether they agree with Benjamin Franklin, who said that “Those who would trade essential liberties for a bit of security deserve neither liberty nor security.”

Why read the Constitution?
from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub by Ed Darrell

Every Member of Congress needs someone to read the Federal Register daily, the Congressional Record each day, and the Constitution regularly.

The Federal Register records agency actions, many of them quite obscure, but all of the agency actions that affect a member’s state or district. Sometimes an agency will try to sneak something past a member, and sometimes they’ll simply fail to notify the member of something that really deserves a lot of attention. The Congressional Record does the same thing for Congress. It’s a difficult read, but someone who knows it well can tell when conditions are ripe to get action on some measure.

Al Kamen at The Washington Post gives an object lesson on why knowledge of the Constitution is important. In this case, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Constitution experts invoked the clause that prevents a president from making recess appointments.

This may be inside baseball to most people. Kamen’s story demonstrates why a party will elect someone like Reid as their leader. He may not be as suave and funny as Jack Kennedy on camera, but he knows where the buttons are that open and close the automatic doors of power.

The detente the two sides reached over the Senate’s August break — which saw the Senate approve dozens of nominees in exchange for a no-recess-appointment pledge — is over.

That deal was reached in part because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) dusted off an old weapon — the pro forma session — which would mean theoretically that the Senate would never be in recess. When both sides negotiate anew, that weapon looms large.

Turns out the pro forma session originally had nothing to do with recess appointments. It comes from Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, which says neither the House nor Senate may be out for more than three days while the other body is in session, without the consent of that other body.

But neither chamber wanted to seek “permission” from the other one for anything. Bad form and all that.

Did you know what was in Article I, Section 5?

Perhaps more important, this was covered by the much-maligned-in-blogdom “Main Stream Media” (MSM). Can you find a blogger who broke this story before Kamen? I’ll wager you can’t.

Don’t know if this counts, but I pointed out back in August that this clause of the Constitution could have been used. In addition only 40 of the Senators could have stopped the recess through a filibuster. Thus 10 Democratic Senators could have been away at any time even while all the Republicans were there. Lastly the three day rule allows several days of break…with the cycling of the the 10 Senators it would have not only been possible but given Democrats a clear advantage in campaigning over Republicans, who would have had to maintain the full 49 Senators at call to try to overrule the Standing Rule.

It would have been outright war…and a war of attrtion…but the Democrats had the advantage.

Board Allows Birth Control for Middle Schoolers
from NYT > Home Page by JOEL ELLIOTT
The Portland, Me., school board voted to allow middle-school students to gain access to prescription birth control medications without notifying parents.

Bullshit! Prescription medication requires a prescription from an MD. School boards don’t have a say in it.