Consider This! | Conservative political commentary in 10 minutes or less

I knew that many Canadians were leaving their borders to come to the US to avoid the long waits they have to endure up there. I just didn’t know how many. Well a free-market think tank, the Frasier Institute, has published the numbers for 2013. One of the big promises of ObamaCare was that, with a much larger pool of insured people, the cost to the average individual or family would go down. That’s how insurance works, right? You spread out the risk over a bigger population, and the required payouts become less than the premiums taken in. More people, less risk, lower costs. You’d think so. But as it turns out, the insurance offered by one of those eeevil corporations, Wal-Mart, beats the equivalent ObamaCare plan handily. Since the Scott Walker recall attempt, he and the Republicans in his state legislature, have been busy cutting taxes and balancing their budget. The result has been that, over 3 years, they’ve cut taxes by about a billion and a half dollars, and the economy is chugging along a good clip, such that just this year they have almost a billion dollar surplus. We ought to be asking our federal government to look at this. How did they do it? Mentioned links: Report: Tens of thousands fled socialized Canadian medicine in 2013 Surprise! Walmart health plan is cheaper, offers more coverage than Obamacare Gov. Scott Walker reveals the secrets to Wisconsin’s $1 billion surplus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuzZRgEAw1k Getting some shopping done? If you're going to shop at Amazon, please consider clicking on my affiliate link. Thanks! You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show transcript I knew that many Canadians were leaving their borders to come to the US to avoid the long waits they have to endure up there. I just didn’t know how many. Well a free-market think tank, the Frasier Institute, has published the numbers for 2013. Turns out just under 42,000 folks fled the country, at least temporarily, to jump the line and get the timely care they needed. That was down just slightly from the just over 42,000 that came here in 2012. This brings up a question in my mind. With the advent of ObamaCare down here, where will these folks go now? And I guess the next obvious question would be, where will we go? *** One of the big promises of ObamaCare was that, with a much larger pool of insured people, the cost to the average individual or family would go down. That’s how insurance works, right? You spread out the risk over a bigger population, and the required payouts become less than the premiums taken in. More people, less risk, lower costs. You’d think so. But as it turns out, the insurance offered by one of those eeevil corporations, Wal-Mart,

The traditional, incandescent light bulb is going extinct this year. Environmentalists touted the fact that even the light bulb industry wanted to get rid of them. Yeah, well of course they did. Listen in to find out how this further cemented their hold on the market, using the environmentalists as useful idiots, and the government as their tool. It has been said that voter ID laws are a solution looking for a problem, that voter fraud is so rare that it's not worth the effort. Well, the Bureau of Investigations in New York City would take issue with that. They found fraud to be simple (with a 97% success rate) and undetectable. I detail how they did it, and how the government's Board of Elections sprang into action to stop this. (OK, just kidding about that last part.) Mentioned links: Industry, not environmentalists, killed traditional light bulbs Voter fraud: We’ve got proof it’s easy Getting some shopping done? If you're going to shop at Amazon, please consider clicking on my affiliate link. Thanks! You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show transcript This year, the traditional incandescent light bulb is becoming extinct. There was a big push by environmentalists to force the change to higher efficiency bulbs, like Compact Fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs. The idea was that they light with less energy, and so everyone should use them. Never mind the market; coercion was necessary. And one of the things they like to trumpet about this was that the light bulb industry supported this move. The thought is that if even they think it’s a good idea, government ought to force the issue. But not one of those environmentalists ever considered this: Competitive markets with low costs of entry have a characteristic that consumers love and businesses lament: very low profit margins. GE, Philips and Sylvania dominated the U.S. market in incandescents, but they couldn’t convert that dominance into price hikes. Because of light bulb’s low material and manufacturing costs, any big climb in prices would have invited new competitors to undercut the giants — and that new competitor would probably have won a distribution deal with Wal-Mart. Basically, with a low-cost light bulb, the major players in the market couldn’t just jack up the price on their wares. Someone else could step in and, with a low cost of entry into the light bulb market, build a better mousetrap, so to speak, and the world would beat a path to their door. Unless.  Unless the light bulb companies could push government regulations that would make the bare minimum light bulb incredibly more expensive. They’d get their price hike, and they’d further their hold on the industry by keeping out competition, because start-up costs are now much higher. Now,

A one-topic episode, wherein I note how the global warming issue has been spun a long while ago, a little while ago, and today. This is an episode full of deja vu and irony, all packed into 10 minutes or less. A ship trying to document the effects of global warming in Antarctica got stuck in the thickening ice. If it was melting, they'd blame it on global warming, but, even though they think it's melting everywhere else but where they are, they can still find a way to blame more ice on warming as well. Isn't it great when every single data point fits your narrative? For fans of Shire Network News, I've dusted off my very first segment from that auspicious podcast, which (among other things) covered a similar expedition to the North Pole in 2007, that ended pretty much the same way. And finally, now that the dipping of the polar vortex is over, let's look at how the same phenomenon was explained in the 1970s. Guess what they blamed back then! Mentioned links: Frozen Out: 98% of Stories Ignore That Ice-bound Ship Was On Global Warming Mission 1974 : NCAR Called Global Cooling The “New Norm” And Blamed Climate Disasters On It A Compilation of News Articles on the Global Cooling Scare of the 1970's Scientists reject claims of record cold being caused by ‘global warming’ – Time Mag. blamed ‘polar vortex’ on ‘global cooling’ in 1974 – Special Report Getting some shopping done? If you're going to shop at Amazon, please consider clicking on my affiliate link. Thanks! You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show transcript Over my Christmas / New Year’s vacation, one of the stories that hit the news quite a bit was about a ship that was stuck in the ice surrounding Antarctica, and the rescue attempts to save the people on it, and then the subsequent rescue of one of the rescue ships that also got stuck in the ice. Now, of the 41 network news stories in the week following the incident, 40 of them didn’t mention why the ship was there in the first place. The people were described as “passengers,” “trackers” and even “tourists”. So in case you missed it, and it’s likely you did, the expedition was there to, “discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south.” Basically, they were trying to document global warming. The leader of the group made the claim that, “Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change, but here ice is building up.” It’s all happening everywhere…except where we showed up. Convenient, that. But this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Sherman, set the wayback machine to 2007, when I submitted my first segment to the late, lamented podcast, Shire Network News. It was to be my sound check, so to speak, but they used it in the next episode, and the rest is history.

I'm back from vacation, and it's time to get back into conservative commentary, all in 10 minutes or less. Bill de Blasio was recently elected as the mayor of New York City. De Blasio is a liberal Democrat, as opposed to the liberal Republican Michael Bloomberg, who just left the post. He promises to bring liberal policies to New York. Well, more liberal than Bloomberg, I guess. But is this a good idea for the city? The NY Times thinks so. Detroit, however, might not. And speaking of Detroit, is it fair to blame Democrats for the downfall of that formerly fair city? I mean, 50 years is hardly enough time for government policy to affect the economy, right? What poverty program did the most good, dropping the rate 80% in less that 40 years? And why haven't you heard about this success story? Mentioned links: De Blasio Draws All Liberal Eyes to New York City The greatest achievement in human history, and you never hear about it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss80iuEBC6A Getting some shopping done? If you're going to shop at Amazon, please consider clicking on my affiliate link. Thanks! You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show transcript Bill de Blasio was recently elected as the mayor of New York City. De Blasio is a liberal Democrat, as opposed to the liberal Republican Michael Bloomberg, who just left the post. The NY Times wrote a rather hopeful piece on de Blasio just before the end of the year, which included this paragraph. His administration could be a redemptive moment for a national left whose policies were often blamed for the crumbling of urban centers in the 1960s and 1970s, yet has now started to reassert itself in smaller jurisdictions with bold new approaches on issues like income equality and poverty. 1960s and 70s? How about the 2010? Detroit anyone? Anyone? Bueller? That city had half a century of Democratic rule, and look where it is now! But the Times conveniently forgets this, preferring to suggest that Democrats only screwed up 50 years ago, and really haven’t had a chance since then. These “bold new approaches” are simply novel ways of destroying the economy, which hurt the poor the most. And speaking of Detroit… --- I posted something on my personal Facebook page about how one of the booming businesses in Detroit is photographing the dilapidated buildings. I labeled my link to the article, “Documenting decades of Democratic dominance.” Can you tell I like alliteration? This bothered one of my Democrat friends who said that my bias was showing, and that blaming Democrats for Detroit was like blaming Republicans for the Katrina response. His contention was that both were unfair. I, and some other friends of mine, had to point out a few differences.

President Obama gave something of an apology in November for his promise that if you liked your health care plan or doctor, you could keep them, period. Turns out what he meant was that if he liked them, you could keep them. And he turned out to be very difficult to please. But he’s not the only one who was going around making that promise. “More guns, more violence”, so goes the mantra that, apparently, many liberal politicians and their voters keep chanting. However, there were some maps made by the United Nations office on Drugs and Crime that tend to set this mantra on its ear. Now that same-sex marriage has been accepted by some states, it’s no longer a draw for the evening news, so ABC News in America has decided to move on to the next big thing; open marriage. This is what passes for “news” in the 21st century; one-sided advocacy journalism. Mentioned links: 10 SENATE DEMS WHO SHOULD APOLOGIZE FOR OBAMACARE U.N. MAPS SHOW U.S. HIGH IN GUN OWNERSHIP, LOW IN HOMICIDES ABC Preaches the 'Gospel of Polyamory' Getting some shopping done? If you're going to shop at Amazon, please consider clicking on my affiliate link. Thanks! You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show transcript President Obama gave something of an apology in November for his promise that if you liked your health care plan or doctor, you could keep them, period. Turns out what he meant was that if he liked them, you could keep them. And he turned out to be very difficult to please. But he’s not the only one who was going around making that promise. There’s a link in the show notes for the occasions where these Senators went and did likewise, but here’s the list of names: SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D-LA) SEN. KAY HAGAN (D-NC) SEN. MARK BEGICH (D-AK) SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO) SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA) SEN. TOM HARKIN (D-IA) SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY) SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL) SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV) SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D-MT) Baucus actually wrote most of the bill that eventually became ObamaCare, and was a major player in health care policy for decades before, so his transgression is especially grievous. They were fed a line, which a few of them at least should have known to be false, and parroted it to the people. The American people were not promised a website; they were promised that they could keep their plan and doctor. Will these Democrats pay a price for this? Will saying something so transparently false hurt them at the ballot box? Do Democratic voters really want people who lie this brazenly, or are just tools for those that do, representing them? Will they vote them out? We’ll see, but hold not thy breath. --- “More guns, more violence”, so goes the mantra that, apparently,

The school voucher program in Louisiana is a fantastic success. The high school graduation is significantly up, and the poorest are benefiting the most. So, of course, Obama's Justice Department is suing to stop it on the ground of ... diversity? Reall...

James O'Keefe's Project Veritas has exposed corruption, fraud, and hypocrisy. The latest group to get in front of his all-seeing eye are the ObamaCare Navigators, those helpful folks who will get you through all the ins and outs of the ObamaCare exchanges, and get you the best price for your health insurance. And, as O'Keefe finds out, even if they have to convince you to commit fraud. Does that sound like another group you have heard of, another target of O'Keefe's exposes? Well, it's the same MO, and in some places, it's the same people. Yet another city (and yet another one in California) could be going bankrupt. But the reason they're going under is over-promising, in this case, to their police force, who's salaries and pensions gobble up 70% of the city's budget. Over-promising is also giving our US government a pain in the budget, and we may be in for the same fate as these cities. However, we have to be willing to state the truth about our finances, because examples of what happens when you ignore the truth may soon visit Desert Hot Springs, California. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUsUWFANPS8 Mentioned links: Project Veritas The Truth about Navigators Another U.S. city mulls bankruptcy due to soaring wages and pensions Getting some shopping done? If you're going to shop at Amazon, please consider clicking on my affiliate link. Thanks! You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show transcript James O’Keefe has been exposing fraud with his Project Veritas for years. The oxen that have been the target of his goring have been of the variety that liberals tend to hold dear, which is why, while saying they don’t like fraud, they typically try to marginalize him. And when that doesn’t work, people like Rachel Maddow just make stuff up. The latest group to find themselves in front of the cameras of Project Veritas are the ObamaCare “Navigators”, those 50,000 folks who will, if you need it, give you help in getting signed up for the Healthcare Exchanges. Once those exchanges are actually, y’know, working. They’ll get you the lowest premium, even if they have to tell you to commit fraud. [See video above] The audio isn’t the best, but watch the video for the subtitles and the rest of the expose. It’s just slightly over 10 minutes, about as much time as you’ll be listening to this podcast, so it’s worth the short amount of time. And it’s not just the fraud that is of concern. Enrollment information is being shared with a political group called Battleground Texas, one that is trying to get more Democrats elected. There’s more in the video, and O’Keefe says this isn’t the last of what he has. Hopefully he’ll get to the issue of no federal background checks being required for these folks.

Once again I'm back with a 10-minute-or-less romp through the events of the day. I tried to keep from dealing too much with ObamaCare in this episode, having said as much as I did last episode, but this issue is just sucking the oxygen out of the news cycle. First off, I consider what the problem was that ObamaCare was supposed to solve, and realize that the solution is worse than the problem. Global warming has "paused" for 17 years now, and a peer-reviewed study suggests it might be doing that for another 20 years or so. And it's all due to natural, ecological cycles. (Imagine that.) President Obama recently said that you can keep your policy if you like it, except if you can't. That was referring to the individual, private insurance market. Kathleen Sebelius has now added that caveat to another, much larger, insurance group. Mentioned links: Global warming “pause” may last for 20 more years Global warming 'pause' may last for 20 more years and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover Obama: "What We Said Was You Can Keep It If It Hasn't Changed Since The Law Passed" Sebelius Bombshell: Employer Based Plans Will Face Same Grandfathering Caveats as Lost Individual Plans You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show transcript OK, so let me get this straight. The problem that ObamaCare was trying to fix was this: uninsured people got free healthcare at emergency rooms, but this cost was borne by taxpayers. So the solution is to subsidize their insurance. The subsidies come from their tax refund via the IRS. Where does the money come for these subsidies? The taxpayer. And for those not getting subsidies for their ObamaCare insurance, many are seeing rate increases to also offset these lower cost plans. And since the Supreme Court called this a tax, then again, the money is coming from the taxpayer. And since those subsidized plans don’t really get subsidized until folks get the credits on their tax refund, they have to front both the cost of the plan and the cost of the often huge deductibles, until tax time. How about that? The poor give Uncle Sam a no-interest loan. How compassionate. Here’s the bottom line: The problem was that taxpayers bore the cost of the poor getting free health care. The solution is that the taxpayers bear the cost of insurance for the poor, and the poor bear the full cost of the insurance and thousands of dollars of deductible until sometime the following year. Does that make sense to anyone? --- In October of 2012, I mentioned an article noting that global warming had essentially stopped since 1997. Well, it’s still stopped, and Professor Judith Curry from the Georgia Institute of Technology is taking a closer look at it.

You were told that, if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor. But hospitals are laying off people by the thousands. You were told that, if you liked your health plan, you could keep your health plan. But the Affordable Care Act has, written into the bill in 2010, estimates of how many people would lose it anyway. You were lied to. And supporters of ObamaCare are now waking up to the realization that, indeed, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Turns out we do have a single-payer system. It's just that the single payer is us. How is it that conservatives saw this but liberals didn't? Hmmm. Mentioned links:  [FLASHBACK] Obama: If you like your health care plan you can keep your health care plan Obama Promises To Lower Health Insurance Premiums by $2,500 Per Year NEARLY 1.5 MILLION LOSE HEALTH INSURANCE DUE TO OBAMACARE Ben Shapiro's tweet Death Panels in Action: Hospitals Suffer Massive Layoffs Thanks to Obamacare THE KOS KIDS LEARN ABOUT OBAMACARE Obamacare shock: $12,600 deductible, 40 percent co-pay, zero competition Obama admin. knew millions could not keep their health insurance NBC Buries Own Reporter To Hide Obama Lie A Plan For Replacement You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show transcript Yeah, I know I’ve been harping on ObamaCare for quite a while now, but there’s just so much wrong with it. And I’m not speaking of the website. All I’ll say about that is that the oversight that was given to putting that together is the same oversight you’re likely to see on the program itself. How does that make you feel? No, the big deal is the fact that what you were sold is not what you’re getting. You were given some promises about this that were repeated over and over. [Audio: ObamaCare keep your doctor, plan] Well of course no one was saying you’d lose your coverage. Obama couldn’t have sold this particular bill of goods if he’d been honest about it. What we’re getting are millions of Americans whose insurance companies had to—had to—cancel their policies because they didn’t meet ObamaCare’s standards. Yes, you can keep your plan, as long as the government says you can. And then you can’t. Ben Shapiro tweeted, “PolitiFact rated Obama's ‘If you like your plan, you can keep it’ as ‘half true.’ Which half? ‘If you like it’?” Oh, and you can keep your doctor, as long as he doesn’t leave the practice, or get laid off from the hospital. There are links in the show notes to stories about how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is, for many Americans, not being very protective in this regard. And the “affordable” part? Not so much, either. First there was the promise. [Audio: ObamaCare, lower premiums] And now comes the reality.

I had a nice conversation with a Twitter follower on the flipping and flopping may Democrats have done on the whole debt limit issue. They were very much against raising it until one of their guys is sitting in the White House. What a difference an administration makes! I was pointed to a quote by Dick Cheney saying that "deficits don't matter" as an example of Republicans changing course as well. But that quote is categorically different than what Democrats are saying today. (And Cheney is not what anyone would really consider a conservative.) (And at the time he said that, I disagreed with him.) Dave Ramsey recently did a segment on the math of ObamaCare. Never mind the politics of it all (and he certainly lets both conservatives and liberals have it on spouting talking points rather than "original thought"), the math just doesn't work out. Math isn't political; it's just math. If you respect Dave, you should watch the video. Like my podcast, it's less than 10 minutes. Mentioned links: My Twitter conversation with Andrew James Bush Sought 'Way' To Invade Iraq? (source of Cheney quote) Political Cartoon: Spending, Then and Now (personal blog, "Considerettes", on the Cheney quote) Dave Ramsey Destroys Obamacare DaveRamsey.com You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show transcript My Twitter account is typically used to send out links to interesting stories that come out between episodes. Sometimes those stories wind up as subject matter for the next episode of the podcast. Recently, it turned into a good conversation with Andrew James, whose Twitter user is @OneWhoSeesDimly. And thus comes [tada] the first Twitter feedback! Now yes, others have occasionally tweeted me back before, but this conversation was more along the lines of actual feedback. I’m not dissing those of you who may have replied to a tweet in agreement. It’s just that this was something that made for an interesting segment on the show. I had tweeted a picture of 4 Democrats who were against raising the debt ceiling before they were for it. I had quotes from Nanci Pelosi and Charlie Rangel in 2004, and Harry Reid and Barack Obama in 2006. Obama’s quote you would recognize from last episode’s Name That Quote segment. Andrew replied with this, “So now the roles have reversed does that really surprise anyone? Dems and GOP play games and America takes the hit. Good times” I replied “While Dems sound like GOP now, GOP has (far as I know) never sounded like Dems do now.” Andrew replied with a link dating back to 2004 when Dick Cheney said that “Regan proved that deficits don’t matter.” That wasn’t in reference to a specific debt ceiling issue, but it is something that matters to conservatives. Indeed I replied that Cheney was wrong,

Of all the services that the government performs, which ones are considered "essential"? Which ones stay operating even during a shutdown? Here's an example of one, and in fact, it's a service that is active only during a shutdown. What if they held a recess and nobody played? A school is banning baseballs, soccer ball, basketballs; basically anything that might give you a boo-boo. That may seem silly (and it is), but there's some other silliness that's prompting it. And we have another round of "Name That Quote". In the continuing saga of the debt limit, I have an outspoken critic of raising it. See if you can guess who it is. Mentioned links: #MillionVetMarch assembles peacefully, pulls down Lincoln Memorial #barrycades. Media Targets Million Veteran March Spite: White House reinstalls barricades at World War II Memorial Long Island Middle School Bans Footballs, Other Recreational Items Ceiling Whacks [Snopes.com] You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show Transcript This past weekend, veterans and their supporters protested in Washington, DC. They took down the barricades surrounding the open-air World War II memorial, and dumped some of them half a mile away outside the White House. It seems like spending money, during an alleged government shutdown, to close something that doesn’t actually require opening was a bridge too far for an administration bent on making sure you feel the pain, even if the pain is manufactured. Speaking at this protest were politicians of all stripes, standing with and supporting our vets. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Sarah Palin were there, they spoke to the crowd, and… Hmm, just a minute. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Sarah Palin… Aren’t they all Republicans? Why yes; yes they are. What should have been a bipartisan show of support, was partisan only because every available Democrat either supported this manufactured pain, or dare not cross his party leaders with a show of independence, or support the troops. Is the question of this manufactured pain --  shutting down things that have never been shut down during a government shutdown – a partisan issue? It shouldn’t be. And I do understand supporting the President who happens to be of your party. Generally, you don’t want to be the one giving the other side an easy target. I get that. But aren’t there some things beyond the pale? For some, it appears not. Oh, and on Monday, the barricades were put back up. Now there’s an essential service for ya’. Seems the World War II Memorial is more secure than our borders. --- There’s concern over safety, and there’s paranoia. You decide which this is. It seems that officials at Weber Middle School in Port Washington were worried that students were getting hurt during recess.

Do more guns mean more murders and suicides? A Harvard study of European countries may surprise you. Or cause you to yawn in recognition of something we've long understood. Is the stem cell debate -- embryonic vs adult -- now over with the discovery in Israel? It may just be. Some may still want to debate it, of course, but the results suggest that the fat lady has sung. (And she is a great source of stem cells!) And places are being shut down that have never been shut down during this government shutdown. Gee, why would that be? The 9th annual People’s Podcast Awards are open for nominations! Now, you’re people, and I’m a podcast, so it only makes sense that you nominate me, right? Just go to PodcastAwards.com. Please vote for me in the Politics / News category. Where it asks for the URL, just enter considerthis.ctpodcasting.com. You can only submit the nomination page once for this year, so if you have other podcasts you like, nominate them as well. But don’t wait too late. Nominations close at midnight, October 15th. I would really appreciate a nomination in this rather prestigious award. Mentioned links: Harvard gun study concludes gun bans don’t reduce the murder rate ‘CAN LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS WITH GUNS COMBAT MASS SHOOTINGS?’ – THIS LIST ANSWERS THAT QUESTION Stem cells made with near-perfect efficiency PRUDEN: The cheap tricks of the game A list of unnecessary things shutdown by Obama to inflict public pain You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show Transcript A recent study out of Harvard concludes that gun bans do not reduce the murder rate. In fact, if anything, they increase it. Researchers looked at crime data from several European countries and found that countries with higher gun ownership often had lower murder rates. Russia, with very strict gun laws, has a murder rate 4 times higher than our own United States, which is, according to some, awash in guns. Meanwhile, European countries with significant gun ownership, like Norway, Finland, Germany and France, had remarkably low murder rates. Basically, the study found no evidence, anywhere in the world, to suggest that more guns meant more murder. Additionally, the study found, “the determinants of murder and suicide are basic social, economic, and cultural factors, not the prevalence of some form of deadly mechanism.” That is to say, if you want to know why someone kills others or themself, there are loads of other things to look at than the gun. I doubt you heard about this on network news. Consider this a public service. In short, Harvard found that guns don’t kill,  people do. Not that we needed a study to know that. Well, I guess some people needed a study. The rest of us know that inanimate objects rarely, if ever,

A very high-profile supporter of foreign aid to Africa has had his mind turned around upon learning what capitalism has done for the continent. Aid is a stop-gap measure, not a cure. See if you can figure out who it is before I spill the beans. The anti-war movement has had its resolve tested by being given virtually identical scenarios about war-making; one with a Republican President and one with a Democrat. The outcry should be the same, if the stance they take is on principle rather than on politics. Listen in to see how they measure up. Mentioned links: “Capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid” George N. N. Ayittey "Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future" Syria: Dozens protest outside White House Where have all the flowers gone Bozell Column: The Vanishing Anti-War Left You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show Transcript Here’s someone speaking at Georgetown University Global Social Enterprise Event. You may know this person, and he gives a hint of who he is in this little clip. But try to guess, if not a name, at least try to categorize him. [Audio clip] For starters, let me just say this isn’t a conservative pundit. Additionally, I will note that he didn’t used to think this way about aid versus capitalism. In fact, this guy has been one of the biggest proponents of aid to Africa. But now he says, “Aid is just a stopgap. Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism take more people out of poverty than aid. Of course we know that.” Well do we? Seems after reading the book “Africa Unchained” by George Ayittey, a research fellow at The Independent Institute, Bono, lead singer for U2, realized that aid, ultimately, doesn’t solve poverty. It’s only a band aid, if you will, but it will never be the solution. What we need to export is capitalism, entrepreneurialism. It starts with the rule of law, of course, and much of the problem can be laid at the feet of conflicts that go back generations. Africa can be an economic powerhouse. It needs to be, in order to break the chains of poverty. There’s a link in the show notes to a short article describing Bono’s turnaround, and how his Christian faith ultimately informed this change. --- The president was trying to make the case for attacking a Middle Eastern dictator. No, this isn’t a flashback to the Dubya administration; this is President Obama we’re talking about. And the response from the anti-war movement has been just the same. OK, no it wasn’t. Oh, there are still the true believers, but whereas before thousands took to the streets in multiple cities against Bush going to war, the first sentence of an AP dispatch on anti-war protests against Obama begins with the word “dozens”. Code Pink,

Back in episode 47, I had pretty much said what I thought about the Supreme Court’s decision on the Voting Rights Act. Basically, the act was not struck down or gutted, as some have claimed. Rather, the very common sense decision was made that, if states or precincts were going to come under the pre-clearance section – that is, if any and all changes to voting laws must be pre-cleared with the federal government – then the statistics used to determine who is subject to it ought to be updated, rather than being statistics left over from 40 years ago. Well, that’s just too much for some folks. Former President Bill Clinton, for example, had to mar his speech at the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech with misinformation, and frankly, one outright lie. I use that portion dealing with voting rights laws as a springboard to clear the air and get to the truth of the matter. Mentioned links: "Consider This!" Episode 47: A Look at the Supreme Court Rulings; Voting Rights Act, Defense of Marriage Act, and California’s Proposition 8 CLINTON: CONTINUING RACISM MEANS HARDER TO VOTE THAN BUY ASSAULT WEAPON Despite voter ID law, minority turnout up in Georgia You can listen to “Consider This!” on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes. Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser. The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis” to let them know where you heard about it. Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’! And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it. I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience. Show Transcript Back in episode 47, I had pretty much said what I thought about the Supreme Court’s decision on the Voting Rights Act. Basically, the act was not struck down or gutted, as some have claimed. Rather, the very common sense decision was made that, if states or precincts were going to come under the pre-clearance section – that is, if any and all changes to voting laws must be pre-cleared with the federal government – then the statistics used to determine who is subject to it ought to be updated, rather than being statistics left over from 40 years ago. Today, some southern states have minority voter participation on par with, or better than, some northern states, and continuing to punish them based on the sins of the past, after they’ve repented, doesn’t sound very just to me. Just update the statistics to reflect today’s reality. It’s that simple. Well, that’s just too much for some folks. Former President Bill Clinton, for example, had to mar his speech at the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech with misinformation, and frankly, one outright lie. I’d like to use that portion dealing with voting rights laws as a springboard. [Click here to watch video.] Y’know, if you’re uninformed about what really happened, unlike you, my well-informed and brilliant listeners, you’d be tempted to applaud for that, as many who attended did. But here are the facts, should anyone need them explained. First, the Supreme Court did not, did not,

This episode features a series of "shocking" revelations, that really shouldn't be shocking at all. The liberal magazine The Nation, after getting after other businesses to raise their pay, is finally going to pay their own interns the federal minim...