Derek Hunter is a Washington, DC based writer, editor and weekly podcast host. Born and raised in Detroit, he moved to Washington in 2001 where he has spent time working on various campaigns, being a health policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a Press Secretary in the US Senate and Federal Affairs Manager at Americans for Tax Reform, focusing on tech and telecom issues. He is currently Managing Editor of a soon to be launched news and opinion website. If you're looking for a logical path to his career, don't bother. Derek has held more than 50 jobs (the official count is 55), and includes everything from what is listed above to roofing, waiting tables, maintenance at a trailer park and working in record stores. You can listen to his weekly podcasts that are mix of humor and politcs and feature fake "commercials" written by him, here.
Derek Hunter
Reid’s Health Care Bill by the Numbers
by Derek Hunter
Let’s take a quick look at numbers behind the Senate health care bill introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Reid claims his bill will cover 94 percent of the population at a cost of $849 billion over 10 years.
The population of the country is roughly 300 million.
At this point you need to understand one thing – there are two vastly different numbers used for the uninsured. The first number consists of all the people uninsured at some point in a given year, whether they are citizens or here illegally. The second number is the chronically uninsured, those who have spent an extended period of time (years) without insurance. The number for the former, the one I like to call the “kitchen sink” number, is one with which you are undoubtedly familiar: 47-49 million. The number for the latter, the chronically uninsured, is one you may not have heard before: 12-15 million.
How these differing numbers come to be is a story for another day, but let’s analyze both of them for the sake of argument.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
A Rush to Judgement: Limbaugh and the NFL Players Union
by Derek HunterAs soon as news broke that Rush Limbaugh was mentioned as part of one of the groups interested in purchasing the St. Louis Rams I knew it was only a matter of time before someone in a position of influence lost their tongue and came out against it on grounds unrelated to NFL ownership. The grounds upon which ownership of a pro-sports franchise should be determined is whether or not they can pay the bills the team already owes and whether or not the owners can and will make the investments necessary to improve the team’s financial situation and nothing more. But that’s not good enough for the man whose tongue could no longer remain calm, NFL Players executive director DeMaurice Smith.
On Saturday, Smith sent an email to the union’s executive committee attacking Limbaugh on the grounds that he doesn’t bring people together enough to successfully join the NFL family. Smith wrote:
I understand that this ownership consideration is in the early stages. But sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred.
In reading Smith’s email you would think NFL some random island of harmony and peace. If you’ve read a sports section in the last few decades you’d know Utopia on the gridiron is as elusive as anywhere else, except perhaps Hollywood’s fictional Cuba.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Keith Olbermann Special on Health Care Tonight – The Drinking Game
by Derek HunterLet’s be honest, the only way to watch Keith Olbermann is drunk–blind drunk. That would explain his anemic ratings and his small but loyal following. Real drunks always frequent the same bars.
Since Olbermann is dedicating his show tonight to White House talking points on health care, I figured I might as well make it interesting by creating a drinking game for it.
Note: I don’t recommend watching Countdown, there is always something more entertaining and informative on the Watching Paint Dry network, but if your morbid curiosity gets the better of you make sure you have booze handy.
Take a drink every time Keith does one of the following:
- Says “sir” in anger. (Three if it’s a “How dare you, sir!)
- Mentions Sarah Palin (Two if he throws in a pejorative like “failed” or “quitter” first, three if he talks about Trig and the health care he got.)
- Each time he mentions the bogus 44,000 people who die each year for lack of health insurance number.
- Each time he mentions 46, 47 or 50 million uninsured. (Do a shot if he uses the new 30 million number.)
- Praises Canada, France or the UK. (Second sip when he says long lines are a lie.)
- Each time he says “death panel” and Palin.
- Each time he claims Republicans have no plan or solutions. Do a shot when he says Republicans want people to die.
- With every mention of Rush, Hannity, Beck or Levin (aka people with an audience).
- Finish your drink each time he exploits someone’s personal health care horror story and presents it as the norm.
- Chug from the bottle if he mentions the fact that Medicare rejects more claims than any other insurance plan in the country.
- Finish the bottle if he tells the truth about anything, accidentally or on purpose. (I was going to say that you take a drink each time he lies but I don’t want to cause a nationwide wave of alcohol poisoning.)
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
The Party of “No Ideas” Vs The Party of Failed Ideas – The Fight Between Conservatives and the Media on Health Reform
by Derek HunterA friend of mine on Facebook recently wrote the following about an article on the life of the late Irving Kristol:
“Once upon a time, not too many years ago, the Republican Party was the party of ideas. Would even its staunchest supporters say so today? I think not. The sole substance of the Republican Party today is opposition to whatever the Democrats are for, period.”
Were it true, it would be damning. Thankfully it’s not.
My friend, a former White House high-ranking employee in both the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations, grew angry, very angry, about the direction of the Republican Party under President Bush 43, something upon which I agree with him. But, unlike him, I prefer to stay and fight for what’s right within the party I agree with most, not abandon it. He grew so angry that he voted for Obama in 2008. Now, I don’t claim to know how any human being works internally, but I don’t understand how someone who claims to be a conservative could make that sort of switch. Simply because your side didn’t live up to their ideals doesn’t mean, to my mind, that you switch to the side that advocates explicitly the opposite point of view.
But that’s neither here nor there. My friend, and everyone else, is free to vote for whomever they want, for whatever reason they want. What I take issue with his the common mantra of the Left, echoed by my friend, that Republicans are out of ideas and Democrats are a fountain new ones.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Celebrities Need Health Care Help Too! (Just Not In the Way You Think)
by Derek HunterFor those who watch MSNBC regularly and aren’t related to any of the hosts–and I mean both of you–you are familiar with the Will Ferrell Funny or Die video that came out a few weeks ago on health care. I don’t want to embed it, but it was essentially multi-millionaires sarcastically talking about other multi-millionaires because they didn’t like how they made their money. Seems it’s OK to make hundreds of millions of dollars speaking the words other people wrote on camera, but running a company that pays for other people’s health care should be something that only earns one just enough to get by.
That’s not to say that health insurance is perfect; some do some shady things and some people get hurt, but just because liberals find the worst case scenario and present them as the norm doesn’t make it so. The vast majority of Americans are satisfied with their health coverage. They aren’t masochists who like being screwed over when the chips are down; they get what they need when they need it.
And that’s not to say Will Ferrell doesn’t deserve the money he makes either, though I’m fairly certain he didn’t return any of the millions he was paid for Bewitched when it became the Ishtar of 2005.
If, as the Funny or Die video seems to imply, someone is to be paid based upon their contributions to society, health insurance executives do deserve to make a lot of money. Certainly they deserve to make more than someone who gets paid $20 million for 1-3 months worth of work, especially when the result of that work is something like Land of the Lost.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Obama votes “present” in health care debate.
by Derek HunterSay what you will about the health reform bill introduced by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), and the Left is having a field day attacking it, but at least it is a plan. President Obama has spent months talking about what he wants out of a bill, but when the chips are down and the polls are crashing, all we get from him is a two and half page outline. Why would he offer such weak leadership?
One possible answer, for you cynics out there (and I may be one), is that he has zero leadership experience and this is simply his way of voting “present” one more time. But that’s too easy and too amateurish for someone so politically savvy.
The only logical answer is he doesn’t want to be pinned down on any specifics. Sure, he’s talked about what he’d like in a bill, but he’s pretty much disavowed everything he’s said he supports too. He wants a public option one day, but doesn’t need one the next, then explains how it is vital to “real reform.” It literally can’t be both but that hasn’t stopped him from having it both ways.
So at this point, whenever anyone criticizes Obamacare the White House has the perfect defense, “There is no bill.” You can’t win a shadow boxing match, you can’t pick a lock with mashed potatoes, and you can’t pin any unpopular proposals on the President.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
You Don’t Have a Constitutional Right to Free Speech
by Derek HunterYou’ve undoubtedly heard someone, maybe even yourself, say that you have a Constitutional right to free speech, right? While that seems to make sense, it’s not true, or at least wasn’t before the government got so big that it started intruding into areas of our lives in which it has no business; and it is part of a modern mentality that has the potential to harm our individual liberty.
To understand what I’m talking about, the first thing you have to understand it that the Constitution does NOT grant you rights, it protects the rights you inherently have from government intrusion. The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights is this:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Just look at the part that addresses speech, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…” Nowhere does it say that you are granted the right of freedom of speech, it says you have it, were born with it, and the government cannot do anything about it. But that’s not how it’s viewed or even talked about by politicians these days.
By saying that someone has a Constitutional right for free speech implies that it is granted to you and, therefore, can be taken away at some point by amending the Constitution. While legally this is possibly true, trying to get that amendment passed would have about us much of a chance as getting a safe driver of the year award named after the late Teddy Kennedy. But the mentality that uses and teaches that erodes, even a little, our basic liberties.
While our Founding Fathers agreed that our basic right to free speech was granted by God, you don’t have to be religious to embrace the idea that we were born with it. In fact, avowed leftist atheists are often the ones wrapping themselves falsely in the First Amendment with the claim that the government protects what they have to say. But it’s not exclusive to leftists, people on the right often cite this mythical right granted them.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?