Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Buying Votes

Whether for or against Fed Government involvement in health care, everyone should be outraged by the outright corruption going on in the Senate. I'm speaking, of course, of the so-called "Nebraska Compromise"---a deal in which Nebraska is exempted from paying for increased Medicaid coverage (while the other forty-nine States are not so exempted) in exchange for a Nebraska Senator's favorable vote on the Health Care Bill. Nebraska also gets a new hospital in the deal, a deal the constitutionality of which is highly questionable.

The whole thing is nothing short of buying votes with taxpayer money. The Democrats are so desperate that they no longer even attempt to hide what surely must be both unethical and illegal. [Don't get me wrong: I'm no fan of Republicans either.] I'm not positive yet, but I don't believe that the U.S. Constitution permits favoring one State over all the others in such a circumstance.

I suppose that Senators (and others) might say this type of thing is just "politics", and that it goes on all the time. That doesn't make it right, or legal. Some of us think that blaming disembodied, mysterious, uncontrollable forces is simply a poor excuse for bad individual actions.

Gaza, Israel, USA, Biden, and Netanyahu

Someone I care about wrote me and suggested I have compassion for Biden.  My response is below. RE your "compassion for Biden" com...