Do you think people who refuse to (or cannot for whatever reason) purchase health insurance should be subject to a $250,000 fine and/or five years in jail?

Well, a slim majority of the U.S. House of Representatives seems to think such a draconian (and probably unconstitutional) measure is just fine because that is one of the provisions of the health care reform bill they just passed.

A person, or group of people, who are unable to think through the consequences of their actions and often resort to oppression of others are either clueless or despotic.  Thinking and compassionate people, by contrast, understand that there may be many good reasons why people do not buy, or do not wish to buy, health insurance.

The health care bill is Exhibit A to demonstrate that a majority of Congress is now clueless/despotic when it comes to economic sense or understanding about how the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect individual liberty. Then there are Exhibits B, C & D.

To date the most egregious attack on a foreign journalist in Cairo's Tahrir Square took place last Friday, when CBS's senior foreign correspondent Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and brutally beaten by a mob of Egyptian men. Her own network, CBS, took several days to even report the story, and when it did, it left out important information. The fact that Logan was brutalized for 20 to 30 minutes and that her attackers screamed out "Jew, Jew, Jew" as they ravaged her was absent from the CBS report and from most other follow-on reports in the US media.

This week, a group of female US soldiers filed a class action lawsuit against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld. The plaintiffs allege that both men and the US defense establishment are responsible for the sexual assaults they suffered during their military service. They claim that the men who abused them were a product of US military culture.

The US media has provided blanket coverage of the story, which effectively places the entire US military on trial for rape.

What is interesting about the lawsuit story is that it highlights the alleged perpetrator. Coverage of the lawsuit has been heavy on details about the alleged misogyny of US military culture.

In stark contrast, coverage of Logan's sexual assault makes almost no mention of the perpetrators.

Well, hasn't this been a fun week.  An icon of the liberal media - the execrable Helen Thomas - is exposed as a disgusting anti-Semitic racist and her life career ends in ruins.  Zero exposes himself as a no-class punk president who belongs in Junior High School rather than the White House.

His kick-your-ass taunt is that of some 8^th-grade wimp trying to pretend he's tough.  All such a taunt gets is derision and ridicule.  It invites the response for which the Brits are applauding London Mayor Boris Johnson  - "Hey, STFU!" 

On both sides of the Atlantic, this summer's most enjoyable pastime promises to be Dissing Zero.  Kicking things off, America's favorite Congresswoman, Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) views Zero as "infantile," and "the worst president in US history."  That was followed by the leader of that cabal of America-haters, the ACLU, saying "I'm disgusted with this president."

Now for more fun...

It has been well-known for decades that paper currency is a major source of disease transmission. During the life of the average dollar bill, it will be handled by hundreds, if not thousands, of people. It is hard to think of any physical object that is handled by more different people than paper currency. Millions become ill every year as a result of handling currency, and a not insignificant percentage of them die.

The good news is that it is no longer necessary to use paper currency in the digital age. Payments of all types can be made by electronic means - with electronic banking; credit, debit and smart cards; and cell phones - all of which help the user avoid physical contact with dirty paper (actually cooton cloth) money.

The bad news is that government policies are slowing down and, in many cases, preventing the movement to the use of digital currencies. The government's war on "money laundering" has resulted not in clean money but requires more people to handle dirty paper money. Goverment currency kills.

IDENTITY THEFT & THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY

In one of the most bizarre political gambits in our history, President Obama and his dwindling band of cheerleaders—nervously eyeing the big game in 2012—have been trying to cast an over-inflated community organizer as the reincarnation of the Gipper.

No matter how often Obama drops President Reagan’s name or how shamelessly his flaks attempt to link this shrinking, spineless president to the bold, visionary giant who turned a broken nation around, nobody’s buying this preposterous propaganda.

Comparing Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan is like comparing Bernie Madoff to Warren Buffett: Hustling your clients isn’t heroism, and fraud’s not a formula for enduring success.

We begin with a happy announcement.  Thanks to TTP's one and only Miko, To The Point is now on Facebook!  Get on board, connect with your fellow TTPers, get all your friends on board too.  Have fun and spread the TTP word.  Thanks, Miko!!

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When I saw my friend Sara Carter's report yesterday (6/03) in the Washington Examiner about the Mexican government opening a satellite consular office on Catalina Island in California to provide illegal Mexican immigrants with identification cards, I sent Congressman Dana Rohrabacher the following email:

"Dana - since Catalina is in your district, when are you going to take action against this?"

Well, I almost sent it, for at the very time I was about to push the "Send" button, I learned that Dana had already flown to Catalina that very morning and was proceeding to embarrass the Mexican officials there into shutting their operation down.  Is he our kind of Congressista or what?

As most of you know, he's been my buddy for 44 years.  I'm prouder of him than ever.  Glad I didn't push that Send button though.

Have you noticed that many politicians who have trouble dealing with reality also seem to prefer fantasyland when dealing with budgets?

New York politicians have been living in political fantasyland for many years. Upper-income people living in New York City have faced the highest state and local income tax rates in the country (over 12 %). Recent studies show high-income earners are in mass flight from New York to friendlier tax environments.

The rational thing for New York politicians to do would be to cut tax rates to make New York more competitive; but no, they increased taxes on the top earners (many of whom continue to pack their bags).

The new Republican governor of Puerto Rico, Luis G. Fortuño, wants to entice them and other productive Americans to his island.  He is determined to provide tax advantages that no state can, even those with no state income tax.  It may be an offer you'll find hard to refuse.

To all outward appearances, the just-concluded Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was a huge success. It was attended by a large, boisterous crowd, a substantial part of which was student-age - a promising indicator of the movement’s appeal to the coming generation. A number of luminaries, including several prospective presidential candidates, addressed enthusiastic audiences clearly invigorated by November’s successes at the polls.

CPAC’s apparent vigor, however, obscured the fact that the conservative movement is at a crossroads: Will it continue to be comprised of, and appeal to, all three elements of Ronald Reagan‘s winning coalition - fiscal discipline, traditional family and other social values, and a national security approach rooted in the philosophy of “peace through strength”? Or will it be reduced to a libertarian-dominated, small-government agenda that ignores or repudiates Reagan‘s conservative values and robust defense platform?

Upon the answer rests not only the future of this vital movement, but of America.

Fantasies aside, like Zero having a total mental breakdown and resigning, it's not clear how this week could have been realistically better.

The Gulf Oil Spill is rapidly becoming Zero's Katrina.  Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu and Democrat guru James Carville - both Louisianan - are just unloading on Zero for his insouciant incompetence.  The anger and contempt that lots of Democrats - Democrats - feel towards him now is growing.  Even Chrissie Tingle-leg Matthews is blasting him.

More and more Americans are realizing that the "damn hole" that needs to be plugged is the one between Zero's nose and chin, which gushes verbal pollution far more destructive to America than any oil spill.

Then there is Sestak-gate.  It is a complete win-win.  It torpedoes Sestak's chances to get elected, virtually handing Snarlin' Arlen's PA senate seat to Republican Pat Toomey. 

And, as Jack Kelly points out, most people will decide it's the Chicago Boys in the White House who are lying, not a Navy Admiral turned Congressman.  Thus it adds to growing public belief that the Zero Regime doesn't tell the truth and cannot be trusted.  Adding further is Republican insistence that Attorney General Holder appoint a special prosecutor to investigate what could be an impeachable offense by Zero.

Plus the economy continues to sink, the DOW is tanking, gold is rising and so is unemployment.  All of this is great news.  The worse things are, the worse things are going to be for the Dems in November.  Yep, the glass is more than half-full this week.

Public opinion polls show the performance rating of Congress at record low levels. Given that Congress and top administration officials are requiring pay cuts for those in the private sector whose companies have performed poorly, should not the same standard apply to those in government who have had a major responsibility for running the economy into the ground?

Don't presidents and members of Congress always claim credit when the economy is performing well?  So isn't it fair to blame them when the economy is in a mess?

Could it be that one reason Congress has performed so poorly is because, for 100 years, its members' compensation has been totally unrelated to their performance? (All wise observers know that one reason socialism fails is that workers are not rewarded for superior performance or penalized for performing badly.)

I do not claim to know what the "right" pay is for members of Congress, but I do know their present compensation system makes no sense. Such a system gives them no vested interest in protecting the rest of us from inflation or any interest in pro-growth economic policies.

Pakistan is a textbook example of a disaster of biblical proportions in the making. Its hyperactive nuclear expansion, weak central government, impoverished, radicalized population, and pro- Islamist military and intelligence arms are sources for major concern. That concern becomes all-out alarm in light of the Taliban/al-Qaida's control over anywhere from a quarter to a third of Pakistani territory and the widespread public support for them throughout the country.

Since taking office, the Obama administration has failed to conceive of a strategy for contending with the situation. One of the main obstacles to the formation of a coherent US strategy is the Obama administration's move to outlaw any discussion of the basic threats to US interests. Shortly after entering office, President Barack Obama banned the use of the term "War against terror," substituting it with the opaque term "overseas contingency operation."

Last April, Obama banned use of the terms "jihad," "Islamic terrorism" and "radical Islam" in US government documents.
Given that US officials are barred from using all the terms that are relevant for describing reality in places like Pakistan, it is obvious why the US cannot put together a strategy for contending with the challenges it faces there.

The Obama administration's decision to ban relevant language from the official US policy discourse was ideologically motivated. And in choosing ideology over reality, the Obama administration has induced a situation where rather than construct policies to deal with reality, at all levels, US officials have been charged with constructing policies to deny and ignore reality.