Junk News; Junk Science

Doctors are scientist so I was troubled when I saw a video clip of Dr. Nancy Snyderman, the NBC chief medical editor, discussing the recent study that rated the United States 41st in infant mortality rate - behind Cuba. It was, to say the least, very short on science.

A somber-faced Snyderman told the equally somber-faced NBC anchor Brian Williams that despite spending more per capita on health care than any other country in the world, our infant mortality rate is worse than that of Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Poland and even Cuba. Further, she reported than the US dropped from 29th place just five years ago. She went on to say that while some states like Washington, Iowa, and Vermont (which she pointed out has universal health care) are doing pretty well, other areas like DC, Maryland, Mississippi, Alabama and North Carolina are not. So the only metrics this scientist discusses are per capita health care spending and the infant mortality rate. Does she go on to explore other potential factors such as drug and alcohol abuse among pregnant women in the US, American women giving birth later and later in life (which is more risky), more multiple births with corresponding premature delivery and low birth weights as a result of infertility treatment? These are just a few that came to mind to this non-medical scientist. No, she just went on to talk about how we have "taken our eye off the ball" when it comes to newborn health and how intervention is so important. These are both very nice platitudes but hardly science. What she does do is imply that American medicine is bad because we spend too much money and based on this one particular measure, get poor results in return.

So if we "read between the lines" Snyderman believes: 1) All of America should be like Cuba or the state of Vermont and have universal health care; we would spend less money and be so much better off. and 2) The solution to poor performance of a private system is to convert it to a government run system. Using this type of analysis and logic, since we spend the second highest amount per capita of any country on education (behind Switzerland) and our public school students score at the bottom of the list of developed nations in math and science, the solution should be to privatize all primary and secondary education in the US. In neither case would I argue that per capita spending and any one particular outcome are sufficient to draw clear conclusions nor would I propose a 180 degree change of course as a solution.

Dr. Snyderman is a smart woman and she certainly knows that this situation is far more complex than she lets on from her report. This is junk news; junk science and purely political - not something worthy of the chief medical editor of a major news organization. With journalism like this, is it any wonder the public is watching less and less evening news and viewing other scientific news reports from the major media outlets on topics like man-made climate change with an increasingly jaundiced eye? I think our public understands science a bit better than the test scores would have you believe. 

Reader comments are welcome.

The Misconception of Compromise

There is a troubling misconception being propagated by the press and politicians lately that compromise is always a desirable goal and that it is the American way. As a result, many Americans have voiced their opinion that they want the government to work together to get things done. They say they want compromise and that the government is dysfunctional when it can’t come to an agreement. The negotiations over raising the debt ceiling brought these complaints to a crescendo even to the point where Cokie Roberts implied on ABC’s “This Week” that somehow our Constitution is flawed because it makes it difficult for Congress and the President to accomplish anything. I would make the exact opposite argument. The Constitution was precisely crafted to make it difficult to do things and the checks and balances were established for that very purpose.



First, our federal government only has a limited number of Constitutional powers which are referred to as the enumerated powers. According to the Tenth Amendment, everything else is left up to the individual States. Therefore, anything that isn’t one of the enumerated powers or that is controversial is supposed to have a difficult time becoming law due to the checks and balances. Compromise has made it possible to circumvent the checks and balances and enact legislation that Congress has no business acting on. As a result, look where we are today. Instead of the powerful but unobtrusive central government envisioned by the Founders, we have a meddling government that imposes itself into nearly every aspect of the lives of the citizenry and threatens our sacred liberty.



Next, some would argue that America has a long tradition of compromise. However, if you think back to your grade school history or research compromise in US history, you will find that there are really only 3 compromises that occupy a place of prominence in our 235 year history – The Great Compromise that established the two houses of our Congress; The Missouri Compromise which admitted Missouri to the Union as a slave State and Maine as a free State, and The Compromise of 1850 that established which new States added to the Union would be free and which would allow slavery. In these examples, two out of the three compromises were not good and to the contrary were arguably evil. Therefore, to maintain that we have a tradition of compromise and that compromise is a good thing is not supported by the facts.



Lastly, Congress continues to pass bills that are thousands of pages long that no one has read, regarding subjects that they are unqualified to make decisions about, or even have the capacity to anticipate the unintended consequences these bills may have. The most recent and perhaps most egregious example, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obama Care) should have been prevented from becoming law by the system of checks and balances but they were thwarted by compromise and ultimately parliamentary dirty tricks and pay-offs. Fortunately, the checks and balances may have the last word when the Supreme Court hears arguments on the constitutionality of this legislation and it is overturned.



The ideas that compromise is an unqualified good or that the mechanism of checks and balances preventing bad bills from becoming law is a problem with our Constitution is supported by neither history nor current experience.

Liberal Ideology Undeterred by Reality

Why should we trust the president and the Democrat-controlled Senate when it comes to our current debt/debt ceiling situation? At every turn, Mr. Obama and his liberal allies in Congress place ideology ahead of everything …including reality.

In the depths of our recession, the president said we needed his spending package of nearly a trillion dollars in order to stimulate the economy and keep unemployment below 8%. The result? Today unemployment stands at 9.2% and economic growth is a weak 1.8%. Should anyone be surprised? No, since every time it has been tried, the Keynsian government spending approach doesn’t work. It failed under FDR during the Great Depression; it failed for Japan in the 1990’s and caused its “Lost Decade” and predictably it failed for President Obama.

Moreover, in 2009 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, with the president’s blessing, pressed to raise the minimum wage. Once again, the liberals’ ideology of fairness caused them to ignore warnings that even a first year economics major understands – raise prices (wages are simply the price of labor) above their equilibrium price and the result is a surplus i.e. unemployment. According the US Bureau of Labor, the youth unemployment rate (the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds) prior to the in July 2009 minimum wage increase was 18.5 percent. By June 2011, that had increased to 21.4%. And who suffered? The very same people the liberals wanted to help – young people and entry-level employees. Once again when ideology takes precedence over reality, the results are predictable. If they bother to report it, the liberal media usually accompanies news like this with the word “unexpected.” Is it really?

To be sure, we are in the midst of a crisis with regard to the debt ceiling but instead of working in good faith with the Republicans to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, the president has used the opportunity to frighten the elderly, demonize the so-called rich and continue to attack American business. Remember “Never let a crisis go to waste?” While the House Republicans have proposed 3 plans now that not only raise the debt ceiling but also help rein in spending in order to actually help solve the underlying problem, the president and the Senate have yet to put a plan on paper. Instead, Mr. Obama advocated a “balanced” approach that called for tax hikes now, an increase in the debt ceiling now and spending cuts in the future. There isn’t a single economic school of thought that prescribes raising taxes in the middle of a recession or during an anemic recovery. In fact, in 2009 President Obama himself said that raising taxes in a recession is irresponsible and come to think of it, while he was a senator, he also called raising the debt ceiling a failure of leadership. Nor does any serious person believe that spending cuts promised for the future will ever materialize. Additionally, the Democrats resorted to the same time pressure tactic that enabled them to push the stimulus package. They established an arbitrary August 2^nd date that the government would potentially have to default on its financial obligations. In order to heighten the anxiety in the country, the president implied that the government might not be able to pay social security benefits or make Medicaid and Medicare payments. Here he is either being deliberately disingenuous or unconsciously admitting that these are his lowest priorities since when forced to cut back, most Americans start at the bottom of their priority list.

Now that it appears that a compromise is unlikely by the artificial deadline, miraculously the Treasury announced tonight it has found enough money to postpone default until the 10th of August. Is it any wonder the public is losing confidence in Mr. Obama and his administration?

I agree with those who are calling for our politicians to act like adults. Where I disagree with liberals is when they contend that Obama is the adult in the room. Allowing one’s ideology to triumph over reality, trump the facts and lead one to deliberately exacerbate a serious situation are not what I consider hallmarks of grown-up behavior. On this, I guess my liberal friends and I will have to agree to disagree.

The Saber Tooth Tiger, the Mammoth, and the Debt Ceiling

What? How can I possibly connect those three disparate items together in an opinion piece? Allow me to explain.

When I was a boy, I loved to read about animals and like many kids, I found prehistoric animals particularly fascinating. For the last several weeks, the debate about raising the debt ceiling has left me with a nagging feeling that I have seen this situation before but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  As I listened to the various senators, congressmen, Administration officials and political pundits discuss the situation, slowly an image from my boyhood began to come into focus in my mind’s eye. The more conservatives tried to make the case for fiscal responsibility and the need to reduce the size of government and the more their liberal opponents called for raising the debt ceiling and increasing taxes to pay for it, the more our dire economic situation reminded me of a drawing I had seen as a boy. Finally, I had an epiphany and I realized that the image that I was thinking of was of a woolly mammoth suck in a tar pit and on its back is a saber tooth tiger. The picture may have been from the stamp book of prehistoric animals I had or maybe it was from an article about the La Brea Tar Pits. Regardless of the source, I now remember how the mammoth appears to be slowly sinking into the tar and is obviously doomed. The saber tooth tiger is so intent on getting an easy meal, he doesn’t appear to recognize the danger he is in and one gets the impression he eventually becomes a victim of the tar just like the mammoth.

Now getting back to the debt ceiling. Our current economic situation is like the mammoth stuck in the tar. Even though our economy is huge, like the prehistoric pachyderm, it is slowly sinking into a sticky pool of economic tar - $14 trillion in debt – which will eventually completely engulf it and suffocate the life out of it. The liberal Democrats in Congress want to raise the debt ceiling so that they can continue to spend money we don’t have on programs that in many cases, we don’t need. Like the mighty prehistoric cat, they are so focused on getting what they want in the near term that they are ignoring the long-term fate.

Hopefully this is as far as the analogy goes. If conservatives are successful at getting our spending under control and resist raising the debt ceiling, perhaps the United States can avoid ending up in the “La Brea” museum of economic history.

What Was Newt Thinking?

Whether one loves or hates the guy, most would agree that former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, is a truly brilliant man. So when I heard that Gingrich appeared on Meet the Press this past Sunday and seemed to characterize Rep Paul Ryan’s budget reduction proposals as right-wing social engineering, I was dumbfounded. I immediately thought, what was he thinking? Not because he was breaking Ronald Reagan’s 11^th Commandment: Thou shall not criticize a fellow Republican but because in an effort to appear to be “fair” by criticizing his own side, he committed a rookie error and was factually incorrect to boot!

By definition, social engineering is a proactive measure where, through the use of laws, taxes, regulations, etc., the government tries to manipulate the behavior of individuals or the population. Therefore, budget cuts that reduce the size, scope and influence of the government cannot legitimately be labeled social engineering.

By bobbling this routine “political ground ball to second”, Speaker Gingrich handed the Democrats a juicy “Two for” – he damaged his own presidential campaign and provided them with a powerful weapon to use against conservative ideas in the future. To be sure, we will see this clip of Gingrich on Meet the Press again and liberals will say, “See! Even Mr. Conservatism himself, Newt Gingrich, calls these cuts right-wing social engineering.”  

Right now the race for the Republican nomination is wide open and there is still a long way to go. The candidates need to avoid future, self-inflicted, gunshot wounds to the foot and concentrate on promoting a positive, pro-growth agenda. They should contrast their proven ideas against President Obama’s failed liberal ideology. And when given the opportunity, they should praise their fellow Republican candidates and point out that any one of them will make a better president than Barack Obama. The nomination will take care of itself!

Whether or not Newt Gingrich’s campaign for the Republican nomination is irrevocably damaged remains to be seen. One thing that is certain is that back-biting among the Republican candidates will leave any potential nominee bloodied and weakened and return the profoundly beatable, Barack Obama, to the White House where he can continue his mission to shepherd the decline of America.

Representative Ryan had it right when asked about his friend Newt’s comment and said, “With friends like that, who needs liberals.”

Moral Development, Taxes, and the Liberal

When I was a midshipman at the Naval Academy, I was required to take a psychology course as part of my leadership training. One subject I found particularly interesting was Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. According to Kohlberg, humans reach their level of moral development by progressing through six identifiable stages. The first stage is characterized by obedience to authority; children understand right and wrong based on what adults (e.g. parents, teachers, etc.) tell them to do. As we mature, most of us move on to the second stage characterized by acting in one’s own self-interest. This is sometimes described as doing what feels good and avoiding what feels bad. The third level is where one seeks to gain the approval of others; often meaning bowing to peer pressure. The fourth stage which Kohlberg believed is the highest level attained by the majority of people is characterized by abiding by the law and living up to one’s duty. Stages five (doing what is best for society and the welfare of others) and six (following higher universal principles and one’s own individual conscience) are attained only by a relative few. From listening to liberals, especially when it comes to their profession that they are willing to pay more in taxes, one would come to the conclusion that they are all operating on level five or six. However, in practice their actions paint a very different picture. This year, April 18^th presented liberals with their annual opportunity to demonstrate their advanced level of moral development and once again they fell short.

I used to be fond of saying if liberals really want to pay higher taxes all they have to do is write an extra check to the US Treasury and I guarantee it won’t be returned. Upon further reflection, it occurred to me that paying more of their “fair share” is actually even easier than that. One pays taxes based on adjusted gross income or AGI which is the sum of all sources of income minus all legitimate deductions. Legitimate deductions are those expenses or activities authorized by the tax code to be itemized and thus used to reduce the amount of taxes one pays. Authorized means allowed not required, so all a patriotic liberal need do in order to pay more of their “fair share” is simply not claim all their deductions. But this causes a real dilemma for liberals. Do they do what is legally right or do they follow their conscience?

Nothing demonstrates this better than the tax return information released by President and Mrs. Obama. The Obama’s reported a combined income of $1,795,614 in 2010 and paid $438,949 in federal income taxes which equates to an effective tax rate of 24.5%. This is far less than the maximum rate of 35% they could have paid had they not taken all their deductions. Did they do anything wrong? No, they obeyed the law! But they also didn’t take the opportunity to do what the president says he believes i.e. that since he is wealthy; he should pay more in taxes.

I was brought up to believe that you “Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.” and that “True character means doing what is right even when no one else is watching.” These ideals were reinforced during my years at the Academy.  So if wealthy liberals feel they should pay more in taxes, they shouldn’t need the laws to be changed in order for them to do what they say is the right thing to do. They should strive for that higher level of moral development, follow their individual conscience and pay the higher taxes they say they believe they owe without having to be coerced by the law.

And while we conservatives will never agree that paying more in taxes to a wasteful government is the right thing to do, we will all certainly applaud our liberal friends’ personal growth.

AMF Osama

Well done to President Obama, the US Military JSOC- especially the Navy SEALS, and the US Intelligence Community!