As health care reform inches closer to reality, a massively important question becomes even more pressing: Will ObamaCare kill the sorts of medical innovation that makes the United States the leader in bringing new treatments, technology, and procedures to market?

“America is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have a national health plan,” says Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), and countless others who want the United States government to guarantee health coverage to all.

Protesters at a recent rally in downtown Los Angeles demanded universal coverage. They told Reason.tv that America is a cruel land where profits come before people.

“It’s disgusting!” said one woman. “There should be no profits in health care!” What about those who argue that profits drive medical innovation? “I think that’s kind of sick,” declared another protester, who wants the U.S. to be more like Canada, where government policy keeps drug prices, and drug company profits, lower than in America.

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To the credit of the New York Times, Associated Press and Washington Post — reliable outlets for promoting global warming alarmism, protecting those who craft it and marginalizing those who point out its weaknesses and excesses — they all ran stories in the past 48 hours addressing the documents somehow obtained from the computers of a UK university serving as the warming movement and industry’s Mother Ship. My great surprise is even greater because these outlets have demonstrated a pattern of only giving ink to embarrassing controversies after a week or so, once it appears that damage control is needed and the alarmists have gotten their story straight.

I documented this pattern in a book published one year ago this month, subtly titled “Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed.” The title says it all, including all that surely seems to have been affirmed by the documents posted, by “anonymous” on a Russian server and otherwise covering his tracks.

Since this affirms, not “reveals”, the scandal that so many have been explaining is the global warming industry, it also raises the issue of how can each of these media outlets still miss the plot? Well, they are doing so in a fashion so uniform, and in the face of such outrageous exposition of the scandal that is unfolding, that I conclude it is nonetheless yet another exercise in damage-control.

The emails, let alone the data still being combed over by the pointy-heads, plainly affirm everything I wrote, in detail, about the scams being run by the booming industry of Big Academia and Big Science suckling at the teat of the “global warming” panic they are also fostering.

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Black Friday predictions run from pessimistic to disastrous, negative interest rates worry the markets, and the New York Times makes ridiculous claims about the success of the stimulus. We discuss all this and more on today’s Coffee and Markets, a daily podcast from The New Ledger on politics, policy and the marketplace with Francis Cianfrocca, brought to you by BigGovernment.com.

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Related Links:

NYT: Stimulus was Awesome!
MSNBC: Black Friday Safety
SmartMoney: Wall Street Expects Big Black Friday

On October 1st, 2009 California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced that an investigation had been opened into ACORN’s activities in California, resulting from undercover videos showing employees seemingly offering to assist the undercover film makers with human smuggling, child prostitution and even tax advice to boot.

Although ACORN has denied any wrongdoing, some of the employees involved were terminated, and ACORN has publicly stated that they would fully cooperate with any investigations that followed.

Interestingly, the local head ACORN organizer in California, David Lagstein was caught on tape earlier this month speaking to an East County Democratic Club.

Mr. Lagstein stated: “…the attorney general is a political animal, but certainly every bit of the communication we have had with them has suggested that the fault will be found with the people that did the video and not the people with ACORN.”

Continuing, Mr. Lagstein stated: “…we are fully cooperating, some of the investigators visited our office this morning and I think they really understand what’s going on.”

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Today is the birthday of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. What do you get someone who has already drawn an extra $100-300 million from the federal Treasury?

The Japanese media has reported that Obama’s recent state visit to their island nation was a big failure, but the U.S. media is mum on the mess that Team Obama made in Japan. He made multiple diplomatic gaffs and this is quite aside from the absurdly low bow that the incompetent president perpetrated upon greeting the Japanese Emperor Akihito.

Before we get to his other multiple fluffs and diplomatic errors, let’s explain what Obama was telling the Japanese people with his absurdly low bow. The sort of bow that Obama made is almost that of a “dogeza” bow. This is a sort of bow that is so low as to be considered a prostrated position. It is seen as an apology, a supplication, not a sign of respect. So, as we see, Obama once again showed that he wants to be known as the less-than president, that he is representing a prostrated people, and that he feels that to everyone he meets overseas he must apologize for this horrible U.S.A.

The inappropriate bow, however, wasn’t the only mistake that Obama committed in Japan. According to the mainstream Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun the visit was termed “miserable,” and “the worst US-Japan summit meeting in history” by Japanese insiders. Worse, the Japanese government was so upset at the visit that it retaliated at various points issuing slights right back to President Obama during his stay on Japanese soil.

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On Friday, 20 November 2009, The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation (Foundation) decided enough was enough and filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court demanding that they compel the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to comply with the Foundation’s April 6th Freedom of information Act (FOIA) request.

The Foundation’s FOIA requested:

• Records from communications and recorded events where specified Obama appointees and Big Labor official were present
• Lists of lawsuits involving the Department of Labor and Deborah Greenfield within the past eight years.
• List of any gifts received by Solis in the past 5 years from Big Labor or its officials
• Specifically provide in detail (a) notes, (b) agreements, (c) communications, and (d) agendas related to the regulations related to the labor union and officer disclosure rules
• Copies of phone logs
• Copies of any notes or documents related to any enforcement of any labor laws and any outside groups such as labor unions, American Rights at Work, or ACORN

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Nobody outside the inner halls of Congress really knows what’s going on in the negotiations on health care “reform. Every now and then, someone emerges from the formerly smoke-filled rooms and throws another 2,000 or so page “bill” out into the public and then disappears to continue talks to carve up one-sixth of the nation’s economy.

But we do know some of the critical unforgiving numbers. And we have strong reason to suspect that radical changes to Medicare Part E (as in Medicare for Everybody) is the real endgame, whatever the interim steps are called: public option, cooperatives, or mandated Insurance Exchanges.

We have the unmentionable truth that Medicare is insolvent. And the common dogma that Medicare is efficient, popular, and impregnable. Is it a Hegelian thesis and antithesis? With the synthesis being to throw the whole rest of the system, which is also allegedly bankrupting the country, into Medicare?

Are our leaders stark, raving mad? Or diabolically clever?

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Who knew that this was the beginning of government health care in this country?

We may never fully appreciate the full costs of Hurricane Katrina.

A step closer to reality:

Doubtful any had read the bill, either.

From tonight’s Politico:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln is a yes for debating health reform, but a no for the public option, and she and fellow centrists are making clear they expect Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to scrap his current plan for a government-run insurance program.

Lincoln (D-Ark.) announced Saturday that she’d deliver the deciding vote to push forward with a sweeping health reform plan, ending days of speculation over whether President Barack Obama’s signature priority would proceed to the Senate floor or suffer a debilitating blow.

But Lincoln and fellow moderate Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) also laid down strong objections to the public health insurance plan included in the Senate bill – saying they couldn’t support the bill if it came to the floor in that form.

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Just because you have a gun, you do not necessarily need to shoot it.  Just because you have a vote in Congress does not mean you need to grab power.

While both Parties have their internal battles, Republicans who are wondering why their numbers are waning need look no farther than the current health care debate for clues.  When Democrats roll out a Federal takeover of private health insurance, the Republican response should not be less of a government takeover, it should be a total federal government withdrawl from regulating private health insurance.  The point is simple, although lost on many.

When we think about insurance in our lives, from life, home, auto, professional liability and health, which one is the biggest source on consternation?  Guess what?  Health insurance is the only one in which the federal government has significantly intruded.  Even that is currently regulated at the State level.  However, the many Federal government restrictions that complicate the health insurance marketplace are the primary reason competition cannot thrive.

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According to a report from Ohio today, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the ACORN-tainted Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, to investigation ACORN’s voter registration work in the state.

“U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan has formally asked Ohio’s secretary of state to look into allegations that ACORN had at least a preliminary plan to back Democrat candidates in key Ohio congressional races in 2008.”

The political plan was described in an October article as “having been scaled back,” and of course, ACORN denied any partisan activity.

“But to some, ACORN’s early 13-page plan for the 2008 election reinforces what critics always assumed: The group’s goal was never nonpartisan. The political plan and other ACORN documents show that the group was interested not just in helping presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom it urged its members to support, according to post-election Federal Election Commission reports. ACORN also was interested in Congress and the Ohio Statehouse.

“There’s no question that ACORN strategized to figure out how its election efforts could maximize the benefit for selected Democratic candidates in the most competitive races,” U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California told The Plain Dealer. “

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From The Hill:

Opponents of today’s motion to proceed on healthcare legislation who are pressuring others to vote no are practicing “Orwellian” tactics, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today.

Reid appeared to take a shot at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who spoke right before him.

“Now he said, anyone who votes for this is going to have a lot of explaining to do,” Reid said during his floor speech today. “Now that is really Orwellian. That is Orwellian. Have a lot of explaing to do if they allow a debate to continue?”

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Over at the Los Angeles Times, naturally, we find ACORN’s statement on the latest video:

Los Angeles ACORN statement, as prepared by the organization:

1.    The tapes are clearly doctored and highly edited and it is our hope this will be responsibly reported on should this become a news story.

2.    The conversation took place outside of the ACORN office. The couple was taken outside of the office into the building-hallway (a common space) because the subject matter they were attempting to discuss was not appropriate and the employee made it clear that ACORN does not help with such things.

3.    The couple was brought to a neighboring agency that deals specifically with international abuse.

4.    The couple featured in the video did NOT portray themselves as a “prostitute” and a “pimp.”

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For some time. several individuals have asked why we don’t just initiate suit against the obviously dishonest tactics and claims by the global warming industry under the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO). This law commissions “private attorneys general” to pursue violations on their own, in essence as proxies for the state.

I have explained with intermittent impatience that just serially lying or exaggerating to deceive are not on their face  RICO “predicate” offenses. There must be three instances of a certain type of enumerated behavior over ten years to constitute a pattern in violation of RICO.

I have received an email from someone who has much appropriate training and experience and which causes me to revisit the issue. He writes,

“Well, now it really does look like a massive conspiracy to defraud the government.

When I was in law school, one of my profs noted dryly that once in a while the Massachusetts Attorney General would sternly announce ‘we are going to investigate this matter of ____,’ and the sky of Boston would blacken with the smoke of burning documents.

I bet there was a blip in electricity use this morning from emails being deleted by the climate change community.”

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There has been a lot of talk about Sen. Mary Landrieu’s new-found 100 million reasons to support Sen. Reid’s health care bill. As she channeled her inner-Hamlet about whether or not she would support her majority Leader on a procedural vote today, Sen. Landrieu won language that would pump at least another $100 million into Louisiana’s Medicaid system.

Many have framed this as Sen. Landrieu “selling” her vote, which makes me think that she’s a pretty cheap date. When fully implemented, the Reid health care plan–under the most optimistic assumptions–will cost at least $200 billion a year. An extra $100 million here or there is a rounding error. $100 million is what you get to vote for the Postal Reauthorization, not the most sweeping revamp of our nation’s health care delivery system. If I were cast in the role of one of the “undecideds” on this bill, which to Sen. Reid is numbers one, two and three on his priority list, I’d hold out for at least $1 billion. But then, I’m from Illinois.

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In response to the Columbia Journalism Review’s accusing me of “blackmailing” the Attorney General of the United States, I must take notice that the mainstream media as a journalistic establishment IS paying attention to the ongoing ACORN scandal.  Good.  I thought so.

What the Columbia Journalism Review is doing is very similar to what Media Matters is doing: protecting the Democrat-Media Complex, the natural alliance of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media.  This ACORN investigation has been going on for two months and Hannah, James, and I have proven to be truth-tellers every step of the way, while the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now has been proven time and again to be liars.

Yet instead of engaging the real, newsworthy issues of ACORN’s possible corruption, malfeasance and illegal behavior, the CJR, like its more overtly political online counterpart Media Matters, and indeed every other MSM outlet, has been sitting it out on the sidelines, waiting – rooting – for Hannah Giles, James O’Keefe and me to make a mistake.  In fact, my appearance Thursday night is the only time in which the media has introduced itself into this ongoing narrative: proof that it’s paying attention and taking sides.

Neither, by the way, has the CJR challenged James Rainey, a reporter at the Los Angeles Times, who has consistently shaded his coverage favorably toward ACORN since we first broke the story back in September, evincing little interest in the truth but instead muttering about the standards of the Society of Professional Journalists (take link, be sure to read the comments).  “But the Society of Professional Journalists has set a standard that deception should be used only when every other reporting approach has been exhausted and only then in certain cases, most notably to reveal a severe social problem or to prevent people from being harmed.” (more…)

Today, Sen. Harry Reid will move his government takeover of health care a bit further down the field:

Fortunately, the bill doesn’t take full effect until 2014. Lots of chances to undo the harm that is about to be closer to enactment.