Rumors are abounding that left-wing New School University (whose most famous division is the New School for Social Research) in lower Manhattan has been a conduit for Department of Defense funding and as well may have provided a link via Norman Hsu between the Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton, and the Chinese government. Blog impresario Larwyn has sent me some interesting links.
Doug Ross @ Journal asks whether "the New School has been a conduit between China and the Clintons?" He states that Bob Kerrey (not to be confused with John), the New School's president, has obtained DOD grants and speculates that Hillary was involved in procuring the grants. Doug Ross @ Journal also states that "the New School also has deep ties to Bernard Schwartz, former head of Loral, who allegedly instigated donations by the Chinese military to the DNC in exchange for the right to sensitive missile technologies". Moreover, he alleges that the New School gave Norman Hsu, a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton who was associated with earlier corruption scandals, a job, and that the New School has eight $100,000 fundraisers for Hillary Clinton on its board.
Doug Ross @ Journal cites the dailykos.com website, which alleges that Norman Hsu, who has "known connections to the Chinese nationals who were involved in the Clinton scandal of 96" has had "dealings with the Chinese mafia". Dailykos.com states that although Hsu was bankrupt, he made large contributions to the Hillary Clinton's campaign. Dailykos.com adds:
"Bernard L. Schwartz, who worked for the Chinese shell company that the Clintons gave the ballistic missile technology to after Bill Clinton's re-election put Norman Hsu on the Board of Trustees of the New School....Hillary Clinton ear-marked 750,000 dollars to the new school recently as a pork barrel project."
Ross notes that Kerrey had been involved in funding the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency's (real, not a 007 script) declassification project and subsquently became an "expert" in satellites.
Merv of PrairiePundit notes:
>"the Hsu scandal also is reverberating in a heartland Senate race that could be crucial to Democrats’ hopes to expand their congressional majority. If former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey decides to run for the Senate, it’s clear that he will have to address his connections with Hsu, whom he recruited to serve on the board of the New School under his presidency...Bob Kerrey was not only a receiver of contributions [to the New School]...he actively recruited [Hsu] to the New School...
when Hsu was known as a prominent Democratic donor in New York fundraising circles...In addition to serving on the school’s Board of Trustees, he donated money intended for a school scholarship"
I have long opined that universities are concerned with money first; ideology is secondary at most. It seems that after his time as New School's president, Bob Kerry has some 'splainin' to do!
Thursday, September 27, 2007
The Essential Problem with Liberalism is Incompetence
>"Dinocrat.com posts an excellent article by George Will on Real Clear Politics:
>"In June, the Times was in high dudgeon -- it knows no other degree of dudgeon -- about the Supreme Court's refusal to affirm a far-reaching government power to suppress political speech. The court ruled that a small group of Wisconsin residents had been improperly refused the right to run an issue advocacy ad urging the state's two senators not to filibuster the president's judicial nominees....
>"...Less than three months after the Times excoriated the court for weakening restrictions on issue ads, the paper made a huge and patently illegal contribution to MoveOn.org's issue advocacy ad. The American Conservative Union, under Chairman David Keene, immediately filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, noting that the purchaser of the ad, MoveOn.org Political Action, is a registered multi candidate political committee regulated by the mare's-nest of federal laws and rules the multiplication of which has so gladdened the Times...
>"The Times, a media corporation that is a fountain of detailed editorial instructions about how the rest of the world should conduct its business, seems confused about how it conducts its own. The Times now says the appropriate rate for MoveOn.org's full-page ad should have been $142,000, a far cry from $65,000, which is what the group paid. So the discount of $77,000 constitutes a large soft-money contribution to a federally regulated political committee. The Times' horror of such contributions was expressed in its enthusiasm for McCain-Feingold."
The problem with liberalism is advocacy of government solutions that require a degree of competence that does not exist. The Times imagines itself to be competent enough to understand how government programs are to be executed. In fact, the Times has trouble managing itself. What comfort level do we have that any of the programs that the Times advocates, such as national health insurance, will be better managed than the Times manages itself?
>"In June, the Times was in high dudgeon -- it knows no other degree of dudgeon -- about the Supreme Court's refusal to affirm a far-reaching government power to suppress political speech. The court ruled that a small group of Wisconsin residents had been improperly refused the right to run an issue advocacy ad urging the state's two senators not to filibuster the president's judicial nominees....
>"...Less than three months after the Times excoriated the court for weakening restrictions on issue ads, the paper made a huge and patently illegal contribution to MoveOn.org's issue advocacy ad. The American Conservative Union, under Chairman David Keene, immediately filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, noting that the purchaser of the ad, MoveOn.org Political Action, is a registered multi candidate political committee regulated by the mare's-nest of federal laws and rules the multiplication of which has so gladdened the Times...
>"The Times, a media corporation that is a fountain of detailed editorial instructions about how the rest of the world should conduct its business, seems confused about how it conducts its own. The Times now says the appropriate rate for MoveOn.org's full-page ad should have been $142,000, a far cry from $65,000, which is what the group paid. So the discount of $77,000 constitutes a large soft-money contribution to a federally regulated political committee. The Times' horror of such contributions was expressed in its enthusiasm for McCain-Feingold."
The problem with liberalism is advocacy of government solutions that require a degree of competence that does not exist. The Times imagines itself to be competent enough to understand how government programs are to be executed. In fact, the Times has trouble managing itself. What comfort level do we have that any of the programs that the Times advocates, such as national health insurance, will be better managed than the Times manages itself?
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Escalating Health Costs and Health Care Vouchers
The New York Sun reports that health care costs in New York and nationally are expected to rise by 8.7 percent, or roughly $700. The national cost per person is $7,982, while in New York it is $8,719 (the difference is probably due to the cost of parking in New York City). The Sun quotes the management consulting firm of Hewitt Associates to the effect that nationally employees will pay 21% of the cost, or $2,008 and employers will pay 79% of the cost.
I have previously blogged that the sum of current Medicaid; Medicare; tax expenditures on corporate plans; and state and federal employees' insurance would pay about 69% of the cost of health insurance for every person, including the uninsured, in the US. Thus, if instead of sponsoring inefficient plans like Medicaid and Medicare, and by combining all the federal and state governments' spending on all plans, including tax expenditures, Congress could create health care vouchers which Americans could use to purchase health insurance from private companies. In fact, the percentage would be higher than 69% of cost because of the large amount of waste and corruption in Medicaid and probably in the other government plans as well. This would require ending the corporate tax deduction for health insurance and replacing it with a blanket tax credit that would apply to all Americans. Those whose taxes are less than $8,719 would receive reverse income tax to cover the cost of health care. Taking government out of health care to a greater extent (by ending Medicaid, Medicare and government employee plans) would be a step toward deregulation of health care. If this were combined with increased incentives for globalization (receiving expensive operations in foreign countries like India where they cost 90 percent less) and limits on heroic end of life care which is in the area of 1/3 of all costs but does not produce life-extending outcomes (insurance for which could be purchased privately if wanted) and unnecessary operations, current government spending would likely cover health costs for all Americans, at as good a level as they receive now and probably better than other nations'.
The problem is not one that ought to involve spending money, but rather one that ought to overcome government bureaucrats, public health officials and health providers, all of whom have juicy "stakes" in arguing for more bureaucracy, more spending and ineffective care.
I have previously blogged that the sum of current Medicaid; Medicare; tax expenditures on corporate plans; and state and federal employees' insurance would pay about 69% of the cost of health insurance for every person, including the uninsured, in the US. Thus, if instead of sponsoring inefficient plans like Medicaid and Medicare, and by combining all the federal and state governments' spending on all plans, including tax expenditures, Congress could create health care vouchers which Americans could use to purchase health insurance from private companies. In fact, the percentage would be higher than 69% of cost because of the large amount of waste and corruption in Medicaid and probably in the other government plans as well. This would require ending the corporate tax deduction for health insurance and replacing it with a blanket tax credit that would apply to all Americans. Those whose taxes are less than $8,719 would receive reverse income tax to cover the cost of health care. Taking government out of health care to a greater extent (by ending Medicaid, Medicare and government employee plans) would be a step toward deregulation of health care. If this were combined with increased incentives for globalization (receiving expensive operations in foreign countries like India where they cost 90 percent less) and limits on heroic end of life care which is in the area of 1/3 of all costs but does not produce life-extending outcomes (insurance for which could be purchased privately if wanted) and unnecessary operations, current government spending would likely cover health costs for all Americans, at as good a level as they receive now and probably better than other nations'.
The problem is not one that ought to involve spending money, but rather one that ought to overcome government bureaucrats, public health officials and health providers, all of whom have juicy "stakes" in arguing for more bureaucracy, more spending and ineffective care.
President Bollinger's Criticism of Ahmadinejad Is Not Evidence of Academic Freedom at Columbia U
My wife's pal, Mary Anne, was going to visit us in Manhattan last night but couldn't because the streets were too jammed. At the invitation of Columbia's President Lee Bollinger, Iran's President Ahmadinejad was in town. As a result, Mary Anne couldn't find a taxi. It's been so long since she ventured into a subway that she forgot that she could take the cross-town shuttle. So she cancelled her visit. Unfortunately, President Ahmadinejad was not asked to cancel his.
I have previously blogged about President Bollinger's failure to protect Jim Gilchrist when student-thugs stopped Gilchrist from speaking at Columbia. President Bollinger has not invited any high profile conservatives or libertarians to Columbia, rather following Columbia's long tradition of paying special attention to the children of German romanticism, to include Nazis in the 1930s and Ahamdinejad now, and ignoring or suppressing the children of Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson.
Having invited President Ahmadinejad and having been subjected to criticism for doing so, President Bollinger aimed to show the world how robust academic debate at Columbia can be. He lanced President Ahmadinejad. The Chronicle of Higher Education (paid access)notes that President Bollinger called President Ahmadinejad "fanatical". President Ahmadinejad replied that President Bollinger had violated the rules of hospitality. President Ahmadinejad is apparently a supporter of academic collegiality, at least when he's not exterminating dissidents.
The New York Sun's reaction to President Bollinger's introduction was mixed. On the one hand, the Sun regrets that Columbia gave goose-stepping German romantics, common among Columbia's faculty, an opportunity to applaud at Ahmadinejad's holocaust denial. The quack academics' support "will be a gift to him that keeps on giving". The Sun argued that President Bollinger aimed to use Ahmadinejad's presence as a "teaching moment" especially in light of the widespread anti-Semitism among the Columbia faculty. President Bollinger strongly criticized President Ahmadinejad's holocaust denial conference and expressed "revulsion" for what President Ahmadinejad stands. According to the Sun, President Bollinger put Columbia' anti-Semitic Middle Eastern Studies department on the spot.
President Bollinger also criticized the incarceration of Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American employee of the left-wing Open Society Institute. President Bollinger also announced that Columbia was offering Tajbakhsh a teaching job.
President Bollinger's response to President Ahmadinejad raises several questions. First, why so much attention from the president of Columbia to the crackpot ideas of President Ahmadinejad? Such attention would be unnecessary were Columbia University committed to academic freedom. Were conservatives, libertarians and a range of views given free rein at Columbia, which suffers from the dominance of goose-stepping neo-German-romantics, then President Ahmadinejad wouldn't require the university president's attention. Second, from the standpoint of intellectual import, President Ahmadinejad deserves less, not more, attention from President Bollinger than does Jim Gilchrist. Third, there were a number of Ahmadinejad supporters in the audience, obviously a fringe, ideologically-obsessed segment of the public. Given this skewness, is Columbia University an institution that can be taken seriously?
Courtesy of Larwyn, quite a few bloggers have nailed this issue nicely. In Slate, Anne Appelbaum argues
"the novelty of Ahmadinejad's appearance at Columbia lies in the fact that he wanted to make that speech at all. Though a blustering Columbia dean foolishly told Fox News that "if he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion," the university would happily invite Adolf Hitler to speak, too, it's impossible, in fact, to imagine the Führer accepting."
Hitler was really pre-television, while Ahmadinejad is post-World Wide Web. Perhaps Ahamdinejad's media strategy has more in common with Abraham Lincoln's. Lincoln nailed the presidential nomination when he came to New York to speak at Cooper Union. Whom or what country is President Ahmadinejad aiming to nail?
Arthur Herman in the New York Post calls Columbia's invitation to Ahmadinejad "abject, squalid and shameless", after a cowardly resolution by Oxford University's debating union in 1933 that it would not fight Hitler. Herman points out that Columbia bans ROTC but not President Ahamdinejad. While President Bollinger argues that a university is a forum for argument, Ahmadinjead is not a theorist, but a real-world murderer. Herman is in effect suggesting that the best people to argue the question of drug illegalization are not drug dealers and users, but people who have studied the problem academically. Or the right people to argue the case against the death penalty are not convicted murderers, and there is little or no free speech added to an invitation for a serial killer to speak on campus. The left views President Ahmadinejad as emblematic of an anti-capitalist struggle, and so implicitly applauds the incarceration of journalists, the holocaust denial and the thinly veiled threats of nuclear aggression.
Merv of PrairiePundit calls President Bollinger's invitation to President Ahmadinejad "corruption of academic culture" and "brainless activisim, not academic freedom". He notes that "professors seek publicity, not freedom". Prairiepundit mocks the "punk activism poisoning Ivy League faculties". Merv, quoting David Limbaugh, points out that the First Amendment does not oblige Columbia to invite President Ahmadinjead. He notes that "Contrary to the left's claims, there is nothing we can learn from Ahmadinejad that we don't already know -- at least not in this forum."
In contrast, Jules Crittenden raves about President Bollinger's speech. He notes:
"Among the many parts I liked, is this part where in plain terms he calls Iran the enemy in Iraq, and asks A’jad why he’s supporting terrorists who kill American troops. How come everyone else seems to have such a hard time saying that?"
Rick Moran of American Thinker quotes Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post calling Columbia's invitation to Ahmadinejad a disagrace:
"THE PROBLEM with Columbia's action, the reason that there can be no moral justification for the university's decision, is because by inviting Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia has made the pros and cons of genocide a legitimate subject for debate. By asking Ahmadinejad challenging questions, Bollinger has reduced the right of the Jewish people to live to a question of preferences."
Moran goes on to quote several neo-German Romanticists such as Ezra Klein, who asks "When did America become so weak, so insecure, that we mistrust our capacity to converse with potentially hostile world leaders?" Perhaps an invitation to a university is unnecessary for conversation, though. And as Merv of Prairiepundit points out, we already know what President Ahmadinejad thinks. Perhaps Klein's neo-German-romantic appetite for holocaust denial was whetted during the Iranian holcaust denial conference last year. Or perhaps Klein want to see more evidence. Professor Julian Cole adds:
"Taking potshots at a bantam cock of a populist like Ahmadinejad is actually a way of expressing another, deeper anxiety: fear of Iran's rising position as a regional power and its challenge to the American and Israeli status quo."
Well, yeah. Hitler was a "bantam cock of a populist" too, Professor Cole. Shouldn't Neville Chamberlain have been afraid him? Or was Chamberlain right to follow an appeasement strategy?
Finally, Dinocrat quotes the lies about President Ahmadinejad's speech in the Iranian news agency, IRNA:
"…The audience on repeated occasion applauded Ahmadinejad..."
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