Sarah Palin Was Right #35: The American Majority on Illegal Immigration

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Sarah Palin has often been praised for her ability to to verbalize a message which resonates with the American people. Of her many statements on the issues of the day, none strikes a more responsive chord perhaps than the former Alaska governor's recent comments on illegal immigration. When she urged U.S. border states this week to emulate Arizona in enacting tough new immigration enforcement laws, it was as if she had her fingers on the pulse of the American electorate:

“Every other state on the border should emulate what Arizona has done. Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona, has taken it upon herself and the state government to do what the feds should have been doing all along,” Palin said during an interview Wednesday night with Fox Business Network.

“Yes, other states should do what Arizona is doing,” she said.

The day after Gov. Palin's remarks, the results of a survey conducted by Opinion Dynamics for Fox News were released. The opinion poll's findings reveal that voters by a 2-to-1 margin think each state should have the right to formulate its own immigration laws, and a majority would like their own state to emulate Arizona in enacting no-nonsense immigration legislation:

A Fox News poll finds 65 percent of American voters think states should have right to make their own immigration laws and protect their borders "if they believe the federal government has failed to act," while 32 percent disagree. Moreover, a 52 percent majority favors their own state passing a bill similar to Arizona’s new immigration law.

[...]

The key provisions of Arizona's immigration law receive significant support. Over two-thirds (65 percent) favor allowing local authorities to question anyone who they think may be in the country illegally, while 76 percent favor allowing local officials to detain anyone who cannot prove their immigration status.

Fully 84 percent favor requiring people to show documents proving their immigration status, if officials have reasonable cause to ask for them.

The evidence continues to mount that Sarah Palin, perhaps more so than any other public figure, is in perfect harmony with the American people, while President Obama and the Democrat left is sounding a woefully discordant note.

Update: According to the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), 17 states have some form of legislation similar to that of Arizona in various stages of development. The states include Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #34: Cathles on offshore drilling

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Sarah Palin explained in an April 10 commentary:

"No human endeavor is ever without risk – whether it’s sending a man to the moon or extracting the necessary resources to fuel our civilization... I continue to believe in [domestic drilling] because increased domestic oil production will make us a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful nation."

Lawrence Cathles, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University, agrees:

Here's one geologist's advice: Don't overreact to the accident in the gulf, and recognize that all domestic energy production involves both financial and physical risk.

The gulf currently contributes about 25% of all the oil and gas produced each year in the United States. About half a billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent is being produced from water more than 1,000 feet deep from the U.S. portion of the Gulf. Over the next few years this production is expected to double, affecting about 1.7 million jobs.

[...]

Yet there have been calls for a moratorium on new exploration in the gulf, and six West Coast U.S. senators have proposed a permanent ban on drilling in the Pacific. The sponsors of the U.S. Senate climate and energy bill have rewritten the section on offshore oil drilling to reflect mounting concern over the gulf oil spill, raising new hurdles for any future drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, although allowing it to proceed off Louisiana, Texas and Alaska.

We should be careful what we wish for. Every source of energy we could utilize is at least as risky as getting oil and gas from the gulf. Tapping geothermal energy is hazardous, requiring bleeding gas into the atmosphere to prevent blowouts... Solar and wind installations are vulnerable to storm damage, resulting in potentially serious power disruptions. Nuclear power carries risk in handling and transporting radioactive materials.

How our society responds to the recent setbacks will reveal a great deal about our future.

Read Professor Cathles' full op-ed here.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #33: Obama On Gun Control

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When Gov. Palin stated in her NRA speech Friday that Obama would ban guns if he could, you could almost hear the collective(-ist) heads of the hysterical left explode in unison. They immediately fired up their mommies' or daddies' computers and madly blogged that such a notion was ridiculous and patently impossible. The reason most often given was that the Second Amendment is part of the U.S. Constitution, and Obama would not dare to even think of treading upon it so heavily. Which is some strange reasoning, given how little respect the neosocialist-in-chief has demonstrated for the Constitution on his watch.

Sarah Palin shot down the outraged left's arguments with some very compelling evidence in this Facebook commentary. In addition to Obama's own statements and his voting record in the Illinois state Senate, Gov. Palin cited a questionnaire from the Independent Voters of Illinois (IVI), to which Obama expressed his support for state legislation to “ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.”

But as John Locke pointed out in an opinion piece in April of 2008, "the IVI questionnaire isn’t the only one out there":

In 1998, another questionnaire administered by IL State Legislative National Political Awareness Test didn’t ask about banning all handguns, but it did find that Obama wanted to “ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.”

Indeed, such a ban would outlaw virtually all handguns and the vast majority of rifles sold in the United States.

In addition, from 1998 to 2001, Obama was on the board of directors for the Joyce Foundation, which funded such anti-gun groups as the Violence Policy Center, the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, and Handgun Free America. Both the Violence Policy Center and Handgun Free America, as its name suggests, are in favor of a complete ban on handguns. During his tenure on the board, the Joyce Foundation was probably the major funder of pro-control research in the United States.

In fact, I knew Obama during the mid-1990s, and his answers to IVI’s question on guns fit well with the Obama that I knew. Indeed, the first time I introduced myself to him he said “Oh, you are the gun guy.”

I responded “Yes, I guess so.” He simply responded that “I don’t believe that people should be able to own guns.”

When I said it might be fun to talk about the question sometime and about his support of the city of Chicago’s lawsuit against the gun makers, he simply grimaced and turned away, ending the conversation.

Again, Obama said to Locke, “I don’t believe that people should be able to own guns” (Emphasis ours). With Obama admitting to such radical thinking, there's no question that Sarah Palin was right to say that he would ban guns if he could. Fortunately, he knows that that he can't get away with it for many reasons, the first 80 million of which are America's firearm owners.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #32: Majority of Americans Still Want Offshore Drilling

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In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Sarah Palin published an op-ed online to explain why she still supports offshore drilling:

"All responsible energy development must be accompanied by strict oversight, but even with the strictest oversight in the world, accidents still happen. No human endeavor is ever without risk – whether it’s sending a man to the moon or extracting the necessary resources to fuel our civilization. I repeat the slogan “drill here, drill now” not out of naiveté or disregard for the tragic consequences of oil spills – my family and my state and I know firsthand those consequences. How could I still believe in drilling America’s domestic supply of energy after having seen the devastation of the Exxon-Valdez spill? I continue to believe in it because increased domestic oil production will make us a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful nation."

She was immediately attacked and ridiculed by the anti-Palin left, but according to the results of an IBD/TIPP poll taken after the rig explosion and subsequent oil spill, a solid majority of the American people agree with Gov. Palin, not the naysayers:

Preliminary results of an IBD/TIPP Poll of 795 U.S. adults, taken from April 30 to May 5, show that a large majority — 59% — approve of "oil exploration and drilling in America's national territorial waters." Just 31% said they disapprove.

[...]

The cold reality is we need oil. A retreat from drilling would be economically unwise. BP's mess must be put into perspective.

"We get more than a fifth of our domestic production of oil here in the U.S. from off the Gulf Coast, over a million barrels a day," says the American Enterprise Institute's Steve Hayward. "If we don't continue that ... we'll be importing more oil to make up for it, even if consumption stays flat."

Today, the U.S. uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day. But we produce only about a third of that. The rest is imported. All told, including Mexico, a third of our oil and gas comes from the Gulf.

Simply, there is no ready-to-use energy source now available to replace millions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas.

IBD's editors explain the significance of the poll results. The DOE tells us that by the time two more decades have elapsed, the world will need 23% more oil than it is using today. We simply can't continue to depend on foreign sources to provide the United States with the oil we will need to meet domestic demands. For the sake of our own security, we must expand our home-grown domestic energy sector.

Average Americans understand that we will need more oil and natural gas, and the only way to get is to drill for it. That we must do so responsibly almost goes without saying, but in light of the Gulf spill, it has to be said. Average Americans also understand this, as does Gov. Palin, who has always argued that we must explore and produce with the greatest of care and respect for the environment.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #31: Thomas Sowell on 'A Duty to Die'

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Ssrah Palin's early warning radar detected low-flying health care rationing back in the day when ObamaCare was just an idea being kicked around by the neosocialists, and her prediction that "death panels" would be part and parcel of the left's socialized medicine agenda has been vindicated many times, despite the leftist campaign to ridicule her and brand her a liar.

Professor Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, in a National Review commentary, examines the socialist notion that the elderly have a "duty to die." Here are a few choice morsels:

One of the many fashionable notions that have caught on among some of the intelligentsia is that old people have “a duty to die” rather than become a burden to others.

This is more than just an idea discussed around a seminar table. Already the government-run medical system in Britain is restricting what medications or treatments it will authorize for the elderly. Moreover, it seems almost certain that similar attempts to contain runaway costs will lead to similar policies when American medical care is taken over by the government.

[...]

It is today, in an age when homes have flat-paneled TVs and most families eat in restaurants regularly or have pizzas and other meals delivered to their homes, that the elites — rather than the masses — have begun talking about “a duty to die.”

Back in the days of Aunt Nance Ann, nobody in our family had ever gone to college. Indeed, none had gone beyond elementary school. Apparently, you need a lot of expensive education, sometimes including courses on ethics, before you can start talking about “a duty to die.”

[...]

Much of what is taught in our schools and colleges today seeks to break down traditional values and replace them with more fancy and fashionable notions, of which “a duty to die” is just one.

Sarah Palin is the Paul Revere of her time. Read Dr. Sowell's full NRO op-ed here. A linked list of all previous posts in our "Sarah Palin Was Right" series is here.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #30: Dr. Berwick Confirms Rationing

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Sarah Palin wrote in a September, 2009 Wall Street Journal opinion piece:

"Is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans... But the fact remains that the Democrats' proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we've come to expect from this administration."

Democrats and other supporters of socialized medicine have, as the governor noted, dismissed the "death panels" phrase, but many went further and dismissed the idea that ObamaCare would lead to rationing by any name. Since then, Gov. Palin's argument has been vindicated time and again (See here, here, here, here, here, here and here). Obama supporters not only dismissed both the rhetoric and the reality of rationing, but viciously smeared Sarah Palin, calling her "ignorant", "stupid", "a liar" and everything but a child of God.

Now more confirmation of ObamaCare rationing is being heard from President Obama's own nominee to run the Medicare and Medicaid programs:

But now that ObamaCare has passed, at least some of its supporters have become quite candid in admitting that government rationing is on the way.

Dr. Donald Berwick, a Harvard professor, has been nominated by President Obama to run Medicare and Medicaid. But Dr. Berwick has not been shy at all about saying that rationing will be the order of the day under ObamaCare.

In an interview in 2009 in the journal Biotechnology Healthcare, Dr. Berwick declared, "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care. The decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

In other words, Dr. Berwick does not mind rationing so long as it is government making the decisions about how that rationing takes place -- about who gets what care and who does not.

Dr. Berwick has spoken, and we are reminded, yet again, who the real liars are.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #29: National Review Editors on Drilling

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In an NRO editorial Tuesday, the editors of National Review agreed with Sarah Palin, who in an April 30 Facebook op-ed argued that despite recent events, "We need oil, and if we don’t drill for it here, we have to purchase it from countries that not only do not like America and can use energy purchases as a weapon against us, but also do not have the oversight that America has":

Others already have observed, correctly, that the risks involved in drilling off the coast of the United States are small in proportion to those involved in shipping oil across the ocean or drilling off the coasts of countries that do not treat safety and environmental standards with our own degree of care.

Oil remains the most cost-effective source of transportation fuel we have; as long as our economy is thriving, we will need to produce or import a lot of it. Global-warming alarmists and zealous proponents of alternative energy have already made the BP spill the new Exhibit A in their case against fossil fuels. In evaluating their claims, we should be mindful of the economic and environmental costs of the spill relative to those associated with their preferred alternatives.

[...]

The safety record of shallow-water drilling remains very impressive, and this deep-water calamity neither tarnishes that record nor indicates that it couldn’t be duplicated if Obama opened more of the coastline to exploration. In any case, the president’s moratorium on new drilling is a self-defeating proposition: New rigs will take years to construct and to begin production; their safeguards will incorporate whatever lessons we learn from the investigation of this catastrophe

The editors say that although "Drill, baby, drill" is likely to no longer be an effective battle cry, "offshore drilling remains a crucial source of energy — and clearing obstacles to future exploration is still part of the right policy mix."

Read the full NRO editorial here.

- JP

A linked list of our first 30 'Sarah Palin Was Right' posts (Updated)

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Sarah Palin Was Right #30: Dr. Berwick Confirms Rationing

Sarah Palin Was Right #29: National Review Editors on Drilling

Sarah Palin Was Right #28: Orszag Admits 'Rationing Panels'

Sarah Palin Was Right #27: ObamaCare and the Marquis de Sade

Sarah Palin Was Right #26: Spaulding on Alaskan Offshore Drilling

Sarah Palin Was Right #25: Peer-Reviewed Study on Abstinence Ed.

Sarah Palin Was Right #24: Gary P. Jackson on Energy Security

Sarah Palin Was Right #23: Dan Calabrese on Death Panels

Sarah Palin Was Right #22: CATO's Alan Reynolds on Death Panels

Sarah Palin Was Right #21: David Warren on Climategate

Sarah Palin Was Right #20: George Will on Domestic Energy Reserves

Sarah Palin Was Right #19: IBD on Domestic Energy Reserves

Sarah Palin Was Right #18: Iran and the Alaska Missile Shield

Sarah Palin Was Right #17: Reihan Salam on Domestic Natural Gas

Sarah Palin Was Right #16: Obama Advisor Reich Admitted "We're Going to Let You Die"

Sarah Palin Was Right #15: China's Military Rise Is Cause for Concern

Sarah Palin Was Right #14: Missile Defense - Russia and Iran

SarahPalin Was Right #13: James Pethokoukis on 'Who lost the dollar?'

Sarah Palin Was Right #12: Missle Defense - Pakistan

Sarah Palin Was Right #11: Palling Around With the McCain Campaign

Sarah Palin Was Right #10: Ed Morrissey on Energy Security

Sarah Palin Was Right #9: Letterman Is a Disgusting Pervert

Sarah Palin Was Right #8: Obama's Missile Defense Cuts Are Reckless, Part 2

Sarah Palin Was Right #7: Obama's Missile Defense Cuts Are Reckless

Sarah Palin Was Right #6: We Need More F-22 Raptors

Sarah Palin Was Right #5: Peggy Venable on Tort Reform

Sarah Palin Was Right #4: Peter Ferrara on Death Panels

Sarah Palin Was Right #3: Obama Admin. Admits Cap and Trade Will Raise Raxes

Sarah Palin Was Right #2: Robert Tracinski on Death Panels

Sarah Palin Was Right #1: House Dems Seek Massive Tax Increase

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #28: Orszag Admits 'Rationing Panels'

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Sarah Palin is vindicated yet again, this time by another one of President Obama's own:

Peter Orszag, President Obama’s budget director, basically admitted that under Obamacare, access to doctors and medicine will be rationed. And the people on the “powerful rationing panel” making life-or-death decisions will be government bureaucrats, not medical professionals.

Hmmm. Let's review. A “powerful rationing panel,” not accountable to anyone but the president, made up entirely of bureaucrats (no doctors on board), which makes the decisions about whether you or your family members gets a needed medical procedure or prescription for medication...

Sure sounds like a "death panel" to us.

Remember when lefty economist Robert Reich admitted:

"And by the way, we're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive...so we're going to let you die."

The Obamunist Left went through all sorts of contortions trying to explain that one away. We can't wait to watch them try to weasel out of this one.

Bottom line: Sarah Palin was right, but it would kill them to admit it in so many words.

More: For a Catholic perspective on this, see Pat Archibold's blog post here.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right: Michael Tanner on ObamaCare

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Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, paints a grim picture of what the future would look like if ObamaCare passes. In an article for National Review Online, Tanner says the bill will cost much more than advertised, and health insurance premiums will continue to rise. Worse, the quality of care will decline, but Democrats will keep pushing for universal single-payer health care.And, like other entitlements, it will be virtually impossible for the Republicans to repeal it.

Tanner also confirms what Sarah Palin has been saying for months about rationing and death panels (emphasis ours):

In Massachusetts, after the passage of Romneycare, the wait to see a primary-care physician increased from 33 to 52 days. Research and development will also be cut back, meaning there will be fewer new drugs and other medical breakthroughs. And the government will increasingly intervene in medical decision making, micromanaging medical decisions and deciding what treatments are most effective or, frighteningly, most cost-effective.

h/t: Eric Dondero

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #27: ObamaCare and the Marquis de Sade

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Scragged contributing editor Petrarch writes in "ObamaCare and the Marquis de Sade" that more people now believe Sarah Palin was right about death panels than when she first made the charge:

The more Americans hear about the Democrats' plans, the better they understand the details, the more powerful and active their fear and loathing becomes.

Sarah Palin attacked Obamacare as creating "death panels" nearly a year ago; the Democrat response was that this was a lie. Shouldn't a year be sufficient to debunk a false accusation?

Unfortunately for Mr. Obama, after his year of persuasion, explanation, town meetings, and providing fodder for talk shows, more people believe that Palin was right about death panels than when she first leveled the charge. This is in large part because both England and Canada's national health systems have what amount to "death panels" that refuse treatments based on expense or age. England's "death panel" even comes with the photogenically Orwellian acronym of NICE. A whole lot more Americans have heard of NICE today than had a year ago. They didn't like what they heard, they believe it's an integral part of Obamacare, and they want no part of it.

What happens when an out-of-control government rams a policy down the throats of the American people that they do not want? History records the Whiskey Rebellion, the violence of Prohibition, and, of course, the Civil War; surely we don't want to follow those examples?

Petrarch is erred on one detail, however. Gov. Palin first mentioned death panels in an August 7 Facebook op-ed, which would make it almost eight months ago, rather than nearly a year.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #26: Spaulding on Alaskan Offshore Drilling

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George G. Spaulding of the School of Business at the College of Charleston, writes in his Saturday column for the Post and Courier that we should drill now for gas and oil in the offshore waters of Alaska:

After listening to President Obama advocating for offshore drilling for gas and oil, a Wall Street Journal headline came to mind: “Alaska Can Meet U.S. Energy Needs.”

An article followed by Gov. [Sean] Parnell of Alaska: “Such (offshore) exploration could set the country on a clear and sustainable energy path for decades to come.

His remarks are similar to those expressed in a speech by the previous governor of Alaska 18 months ago. Your columnist was there, along with Gov. Sarah Palin, who was unknown to us at the time, a couple of months before her vice-presidential nomination,

She said, “We in Alaska have enough oil to meet U.S. demand for seven years and enough natural gas to meet demand for eight years.”

She also emphasized that of the 20 million acres in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, drilling for the known reserves would require only 2,000 acres, “Just a sliver.”

Gov. Palin also said, “We are sending diplomats to the Mideast begging for more oil production. At the same time, it is so easy to release demand right here in Alaska. It makes no sense to me. Others in Congress, who have never been to Alaska, are making decisions.”

Read Spaulding's column unabridged here.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #25: Peer-Reviewed Study on Abstinence Ed.

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The common-sense conservatism of Sarah Palin has been vindicated yet again:

During the campaign the left made a big deal out of Palin’s support for abstinence only sex education. After it was learned that her daughter was pregnant the left used it to “prove” that abstinence education did not work. This is like saying that Ted Kennedy’s accident that killed a young woman (who was not his wife) is proof that driver’s education does not work.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Palin bash. A new study shows that abstinence only education has better results than safe sex classes. Jack Cafferty of CNN presented the study fairly when he reported:

that only “33 percent of sixth and seventh graders who took an abstinence-only program began having sex within two years,” compared to “52 percent who were taught only about safe sex…[and] 42 percent who learned about both safe sex and abstinence,”

In true government fashion, Obama’s budget cuts funding for the most successful program of the three.

The full post on Big Dog's Weblog is here.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #24: Gary P. Jackson on Energy Security

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Gary P. Jackson, in an op-ed for The Cyrpress Times, says that the Christmas Day attempt to blow an airliner and the three hundred souls aboard to Kingdom Come highlights not only our troubling homeland security issues, but the matter of energy independence (or energy security) as well. This is an issue that Sarah Palin has been trying to warn the nation about for years:

"Of course, Sarah’s message on energy independence isn’t just an economic one. Now it’s true, we send between $700 billion and $1 trillion dollars annually overseas. The problem is many times it’s to nations that not only hate us, but use our own dollars to fund efforts to undermine us as a nation. In other words, they use our dollars to fund terror, worldwide, against the United States, and our allies."

And Jackson points out that the problem of energy security is not limited to just one geographic part of the world:

"There are other nations, such as Venezuela, who are teaming up with bad actors like Iran, and Russia, forming alliances that will further weaken the United States, and her allies. These relationships will also allow Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez to exert power over weaker South American states, thus spreading communism and further destroying what freedoms people in that region have. It will be a disaster."

All of which makes Sarah Palin's advocacy for domestic oil and gas drilling more than just common sense conservatism:

"Back in August the big talk was Petrobas, and the huge deal Obama made with the Brazilian Oil Giant. Obama “loaned” Petrobas $10 billion American tax payer dollars so they could drill offshore, something Obama and his thugs fight tooth and nail against in our own country."

"America is rich in oil, right off our own coast line, but we are told we will literally destroy the world, and all of mankind, plus all of the fishes in the sea, and the polar bears, of course, if we dare to drill for that oil."

"This made me wonder why, if drilling for our oil would be such a disaster, could one drill off the coast of Brazil without such harmful effects..."

"You see literally just days before our most corrupt president in the nation’s history was so generous with our money, his boss, George Soros, became the major stockholder in Petrobas! In fact, it became Soros’ largest holding. Funny how having Soros involved made all of the environmental concerns go away..."

But, as Jackson says, there’s much more, and you can read it all here.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #23: Dan Calabrese on Death Panels

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Posting at The North Star National, Dan Calabrese says not only was Sarah Palin right about the death panels, but Harry Reid is attempting to make them permanent:

It’s no cause for celebration, and Sarah Palin’s not the type for schadenfreude, but she was right about the death panels. So right, in fact, that the death panels are receiving some very special and probably unconstitutional protection in the Senate health care bill.

The creation of the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board – the panel that decides who goes without coverage so costs can be cut – cannot be repealed, according to language Harry Reid has inserted into the bill, without a supermajority vote of two-thirds.

[...]

What Palin said all along was that government-run health care, especially established on the notion that it could somehow cut costs, would inevitably lead to rationing. And she was confident an administration in love with the idea of “experts” designing “systems” would put together some sort of panel to decide how to ration the coverage.

Enter the Independent Payment Advisory Board, so important that Harry Reid seeks to protect its existence forever by requiring a two-thirds supermajority to ever kill it.

The radical liberals in control of the federal government are doing all they can to make this a very scary Christmas and a bankrupt new year. Read the unabridged original Dan Calabrese post here.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #22: CATO's Alan Reynolds on Death Panels

by Lisa Graas
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When the Democrats tell you there are 'no death panels' in their healthcare reform legislation, know this. They are lying to you. Alan Reynolds, writing for the Cato Institute, explained in an article today -- "Death Panels? Sarah Palin Was Right."

How could anyone believe Palin’s sensible comment about rationing was, in reality, a senseless fear of counseling? To say so was no mistake; it was an oft-repeated big lie.

Reynolds explains how they lied and to what extent they lied. He also describes the very real dangers of the Democrats' healthcare agenda succinctly:

Pending health care bills would make......government-mandated scarcity of health care much worse. There would be massive shifting of money away from Medicare toward Medicaid. But the extra Medicaid money would be spread around more thinly. States would cut benefits to the poor in order to accommodate millions of new, less-poor people lured into Medicaid, at least half of whom (7 or 8 million by my estimate) currently have employer-provided health insurance.

The Senate health bill supposedly intends to slash Medicare payment rates for physicians by 21% next year and more in future years, with permanent reductions in payments to other medical services too. It would also establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board which would be empowered to make deeper cuts which Congress could reject only with considerable difficulty. If that’s not quite a “death panel” it would surely not be pro-life in its impact.

The Congressional Budget Office says, “It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would . . . reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.”

Actually, it’s clear enough that the proposed Medicare cuts won’t be achieved, but that efforts in that direction will nonetheless reduce access to care and diminish its quality. The government can’t boost demand and cut prices without creating excess demand. And that, in turn, means rationing by longer waiting lines and by panels (rationing boards) making life-or death decisions for other people.

As Sarah Palin predicted, “Government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course.”

For the record, I'm in that group Palin calls "the sick" because I am uninsured and have chronic Lyme Disease. My elderly mother is on Medicare and I have two disabled brothers on Medicaid. I've researched this at length as it affects my family in astronomical proportions and I have found that Sarah Palin has this right. Not only are 'death panels' in this legislation, the Democrats want to make them permanent. Yes, 'death panels' can be a scary term, but Palin used hyperbole to call attention to these 'panels' that will decide who lives and who dies. I, for one, appreciate straight talk, particularly on such an incredibly serious issue.

The left doesn't generally deny that there is rationing. They merely object to the term 'death panels' because it's 'scary' and, as Reynolds explained, they aver that it has to do with the end-of-life counseling, not the rationing many of them admit will occur. In regard to this rationing, the only argument the left seems to be able to come up with is that "insurance companies do it, too". This is rather like claiming that gun shops deny my right to own a gun because they charge me for the guns. It exhibits a profound ignorance of, or complacency toward, the rights delineated in our Constitution and how they are preserved. Our Constitution doesn't restrict gun shops and insurance companies. It does restrict our federal government.

Government denial of healthcare is unConstitutional because we have a "right" to it. If we have a "right" to something, does it mean government must provide it? Conservatives say no. Liberals say yes, IF you're talking about healthcare. If you're talking about guns, though, they'll object.....strongly.

Our right to life includes our right to health care, and if government rations care, it violates our right to healthcare. It really is a very simple thing to understand if you take the time to understand the difference between a "right" and an "entitlement". Unfortunately, most people don't have the time or the patience to study the jurisprudence on this, nor the intentions of the Founding Fathers. It's also unfortunate for America that the left doesn't interpret the Constitution with any constraint. They apparently just make it up as they go along based on whatever feels good at the moment and how much money/votes they can get.

America, there's never been a more important time to stand up for life. I urge you to stand with Sarah Palin on this. She's right on target and we are in deep, deep trouble as a nation if this stands.

- Lisa

Lisa Graas is editor of the Palin Twibe Blog

Sarah Palin Was Right #21: David Warren on Climategate

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No sooner had John McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running mate, the Democrat opposition research machine shifted into overdrive. They intrepid diggers thought they had struck gold in an Palin interview for the September, 2008 issue of NewsMax. In that discussion, the then-governor of Alaska, said that she did not believe climate change is caused by human behavior:

“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made,” Palin said in the interview, which was posted online Friday.

AGW (Anthropogenic global warming) true believers are convinced that the earth is warming and that change in the climate is the result of human activity on the planet. AGW skeptics, however, argue that the earth has experienced alternating cycles of warming and cooling, both prior to and after the dawn of man. The warming and cooling, they say, can be attributed to variations in the sun's activity as the earth orbits around its star.

For more than a year the AGW true believers (i.e., most all liberals, Democrats and Palin-haters) have ridiculed former Gov. Palin and anyone else who doesn't adhere to their beliefs. Skeptics have long claimed that the "science" used by the true believers is in reality "junk science," and the data AGW proponents have relied upon to push their theories has been manipulate. Recent events tend to give credence to the skeptics and to vindicate Sarah Palin:

A computer hacker in England has done the world a service by making available a huge quantity of evidence for the way in which "human-induced global warming" claims have been advanced over the years.

By releasing into the Internet about a thousand internal e-mails from the servers of the Climate Research Unit in the University of East Anglia -- in some respects the international clearing house for climate change "science" -- he has (or they have) put observers in a position to see that claims of conspiracy and fraud were not unreasonable.

More generally, we have been given the materials with which to obtain an insight into how all modern science works when vast amounts of public funding is at stake and when the vested interests associated with various "progressive" causes require a particular scientific result.

There is little doubt that the e-mails were real. Even so warmist a true-believer as George Monbiot led his column in the Guardian yesterday with: "It's no use pretending this isn't a major blow. The e-mails extracted ... could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them."

[...]

Nigel Lawson (a.k.a. Baron Lawson of Blaby), the former British chancellor of the exchequer, who is among prominent persons demanding a full and open public inquiry, summarized the content of the e-mails in this way:

"Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals."

Why would they cook the data? Just follow the money. AGW has been a big money maker. Just ask Al Gore.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #20: George Will on Domestic Energy Reserves

In her 2008 debate with Joe Biden, Sarah Palin argued:

"When we talk about energy, we have to consider the need to do all that we can to allow this nation to become energy independent. It’s a nonsensical position that we are in when we have domestic supplies of energy all over this great land."

Just the month before, Gov. Palin had said in her RNC acceptance speech:

"The stakes for our nation could not be higher... we cannot leave ourselves at the mercy of foreign suppliers... And take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: We’ve got lots of both."

She wasn't just bragging on Alaska's natural resources, her experience as governor of an energy-producing state, or the energy expertise she acquired as an oil and gas commissioner. The United States is rich in oil and natural gas reserves; rich beyond our wildest dreams. In his most recent Townhall.com column, George Will says claims that we are running out of oil have repeatedly been made for the past ninety-five years:

"In 1914, the Bureau of Mines said U.S. oil reserves would be exhausted by 1924. In 1939, the Interior Department said the world had 13 years worth of petroleum reserves. Then a global war was fought and the postwar boom was fueled, and in 1951 Interior reported that the world had ... 13 years of reserves. In 1970, the world's proven oil reserves were an estimated 612 billion barrels. By 2006, more than 767 billion barrels had been pumped and proven reserves were 1.2 trillion barrels. In 1977, Scold in Chief Jimmy Carter predicted that mankind "could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade." Since then the world has consumed three times more oil than was then in the world's proven reserves."

But in the bold new world of the 21st century, surely we can at long last wash our hands of those messy old fossil fuels, right? Wrong. As Sarah Palin pointed out last month in an NRO opinion piece:

"We rely on petroleum for much more than just powering our vehicles: It is essential in everything from jet fuel to petrochemicals, plastics to fertilizers, pesticides to pharmaceuticals. According to the Energy Information Administration, our total domestic petroleum consumption last year was 19.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Motor gasoline and diesel fuel accounted for less than 13 million bpd of that. Meanwhile, we produced only 4.95 million bpd of domestic crude. In other words, even if we ran all our vehicles on something else (which won’t happen anytime soon), we would still have to depend on imported oil. And we’ll continue that dependence until we develop our own oil resources to their fullest extent."

Will says the demand for oil and gas is simply growing at such a rapid pace that the world is not likely to outgrow it's need for the stuff anytime soon:

"Keith O. Rattie, CEO of Questar Corporation, a natural gas and pipeline company, says that by 2050 there may be 10 billion people demanding energy -- a daunting prospect, considering that of today's 6.2 billion people, nearly 2 billion "don't even have electricity -- never flipped a light switch." Rattie says energy demand will grow 30 percent to 50 percent in the next 20 years and there are no near-term alternatives to fossil fuels."

Wind and solar power combined account for only one-sixth of 1 percent of U.S. energy consumption. Even if we were to embark on a crash program to develop renewables, and even with nuclear added to the mix, we will still need petro. But despite the fact that we've been extracting oil and gas for over a century, there's plenty more of it to be had:

"Edward L. Morse, an energy official in Carter's State Department, writes in Foreign Affairs that the world's deep-water oil and gas reserves are significantly larger than was thought just a decade ago, and high prices have spurred development of technologies -- a drilling vessel can cost $1 billion -- for extracting them."

So just how much oil and gas is still under our feet?

"Rattie says U.S. known reserves of natural gas, which are sure to become larger, exceed 100 years of supply at the current rate of consumption. BP recently announced a 'giant' oil discovery beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Yergin, writing in Foreign Policy, says "careful examination of the world's resource base ... indicates that the resource endowment of the planet is sufficient to keep up with demand for decades to come."

Significant new discoveries have been made in Louisiana (Haynesville Shale) and the Ozarks (Fayetteville Shale). And of course in Sarah Palin's Alaska, plentiful oil and gas reserves are under the North Slope and off the 49th States's shores. They are mostly conventional deposits, so no expensive new technologies are required to extract them.

All that is standing between domestic oil and gas supplies and our need for them are the environmentalists. Will say the environmental lobby will continue to say that fossil fuels are scarce resources because they believe that scarcity demands that government put its jack booted foot down (on our necks and in the way of domestic energy security) and allocate those "scarce" resources. Statism is a way of thinking which demands constant manufactured self-justification because it is a false doctrine.

Sarah Palin's argument to the environmentalists is this:

"Many of the countries we’re forced to import from have few if any environmental-protection laws, and those that do exist often go unenforced. In effect, American environmentalists are preventing responsible development here at home while supporting irresponsible development overseas."

"My home state of Alaska shows how it’s possible to be both pro-environment and pro-resource-development. Alaskans would never support anything that endangered our pristine air, clean water, and abundant wildlife (which, among other things, provides many of us with our livelihood). "

If only they would remove their fingers from inside their ear canals, stop chanting "we can't hear you" and listen, for a change.

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #19: IBD on Domestic Energy Reserves

A recent report from the Congressional Research Service contains some startling information: when U.S. energy resources are counted and then converted to their barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), we are literally sitting on the largest energy reserves in the world. Via Investors.com:

According to the CRS, the U.S. has 1,321 billion barrels of oil (or barrels of oil equivalent for other sources of energy) if you combine its recoverable natural gas, oil and coal reserves. Russia is close behind with 1,248 billion barrels BOE. Other energy-producing nations, including many that export oil to the U.S., lag behind.

Of course, much of our world-leading reserves are off-limits by government edict.

Former Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, commenting on how the current administration's pandering to special interest groups keeps us dependent on foreign sources of energy:

This nonsensical opposition to American domestic energy development continues to this day. Apparently the Obama-Biden administration only approves of offshore drilling in Brazil, where it will provide security and jobs for Brazilians.

The editors at Investors.com point out that the Democrats' idea of exploiting only renewable domestic sources of energy is not only an expensive notion, but in our weakened economy, it is depriving Americans of badly-needed jobs*:

We are dependent on fossil fuel energy and will be for some time. The folks at Peabody Energy say replacing coal would require 2,400 times more solar generation, 40 times more wind power, 250 new nuclear plants, almost double the U.S. production of natural gas, 500 hydro plants the size of the Hoover Dam or halving electricity consumption.

"Our overwhelming coal, natural gas and oil resources represent tens of trillions of dollars in wealth and millions of American jobs," said Sen. James Inhofe, R.-Okla., who released the CRS data.

[...]

Sadly, the report stated that the U.S. has tapped into only 13%, or 21 billion barrels of its oil reserves, with the other 87% still untouched.

Palin reminds us that the U.S. dependency on foreign energy sources is not just economic foolishness, but also as a failure to make this nation a more secure one:

Through this massive transfer of wealth, we lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year that could be invested in our economy. Instead it goes to foreign countries, including some repressive regimes that use it to fund activities that threaten our security.

Reliance on foreign sources of energy weakens America. When a riot breaks out in an OPEC nation, or a developing country talks about nationalizing its oil industry, or a petro-dictator threatens to cut off exports, the probability is great that the price of oil will shoot up. Even in friendly nations, business and financial decisions made for local reasons can destabilize America’s energy market, since the price we pay for foreign oil is subject to rising and falling exchange rates. Decreasing our dependence on foreign sources of energy will reduce the impact of world events on our economy.

In the end, energy independence is not just about the environment or the economy. It’s about freedom and confidence. It’s about building a more secure and peaceful America, an America in which our energy needs will not be subject to the whims of nature, currency speculators, or madmen in possession of vast oil reserves.

* The U.S. now has double-digit unemployment, according to the Labor Department

- JP

Sarah Palin Was Right #18: Iran and the Alaska Missile Shield

- by upinak

When Obama stands there with his feeble limp-wristed style to swoon the stupid liberals into believing all is good and no harm will come to them. It makes one wonder about the safety for the country as well as question when Obama is actually going to do anything about the troops in Afghanistan.

Iran has made it clear to the world that it will not abide by the sanctions that were put in place to make it “safe” for what they are doing with the yellow cake uranium. They are going their own way regardless. The mullahs have not cooperated with this nation, and Cheney and Joint Chiefs predicted that it was never going to happen. And Obama just sits there looking like the schoolyard mama's boy being pushed around by the bully.

But here is a new shocker. I have pointed out that Alaska has a missile shield for the United States which would protect the West Coast and the Eastern Seaboard in some cases as Alaska's location in the hemisphere the ability of the the 49th Missile Defense Battalion to react quickly argue strongly for the US. to expand and strengthen its missile defense capabilities. Indeed, recently in the news it has come to light that there is a new measure on the table to complete the missile defense system at Ft. Greely but only subject to a bizarre condition:

Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat, appealed to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June to maintain money to expand the ground-based missile defense system, saying it's not just about North Korea but also about shooting down missiles launched by Iran. In a news release Tuesday, Begich said the plan is "a welcome decision that will decrease the risk of the ever-evolving ballistic missile threats from rogue nations by increasing capacity required to defend the United States."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, was less enthusiastic about the decision in an e-mailed statement to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, noting that the completion of Missile Field 2 comes with plans to decommission another missile field at the base, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks. "I remain unconvinced that abandonment of the Bush administration's plan, previously supported by Secretary Gates, is the right thing to do from a national security perspective," Murkowski said.

So we can have all the missiles that were slated for our protection under the Bush administration for overall protection, but we have to dismantle Missile Field 1, fund get the missiles for Missile Field 2 at Greely. Does anyone else think this sound like a self-defeating proposition? Especially since the Missile Field 1 only became fully operational in 2003/2004! Why does the Washington establishment want to waste the taxpayers' hard-earned money in such a cavalier manner?

Sarah Palin, you were right. It is America's misfortune that it has come to this.

- u