The Freedom Minute

Another Paul Koretz Bombshell

If you’ve been following the Paul Koretz saga , you’ll know that last week I confronted this Los Angeles City Council member regarding his Nazi Germany analogy when referring to Arizona’s illegal immigration law. Here’s what he originally said:

“If this was being proposed at the Federal level, I would think we were absolutely at the beginning of what went on in Nazi Germany. It’s not much different. Fortunately it’s a State, but this State needs to be stung in every possible way until they stop this behavior. We can’t let this advance any further, this is absolutely dangerous.”

Koretz has been extensively criticized for playing the Nazi card, including this rebuke from Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Weisenthal Center. “We don’t need on top of everything else invoking imagery that is inappropriate. This type of language is toxic, is not accurate and makes the whole issue more difficult, not less difficult, to resolve.”

Koretz, aware of this criticism, admitted to me that “I learned something. But that was my gut, from the heart, response, and I probably wouldn’t say it again. I mean even my friends at the Simon Wiesenthal Center… even they took a shot at me – and maybe appropriately so”.

From this, one might believe that Koretz truly didn’t realize how insensitive his words might be and that he was somewhat regretful; that he really didn’t know any better and that he’s now learned his lesson.

However, I’ve uncovered some truly astounding information that I believe casts Paul Koretz’s entire behavior in this matter in a new light. So, as Paul Harvey used to say, here’s the rest of the story:

Two years ago, the City of Pomona, California was embroiled in a similar controversy. The police department had set up a DUI checkpoint near a large Cinco De Mayo celebration. While the department claimed that the location and timing of the checkpoint was entirely based on the fact that Cinco De Mayo is known for large alcohol consumption (and presumably intoxicated driving), they came under fire from Latino citizens who felt they were being unfairly singled out. Specifically, claims were made that illegal immigrants were being targeted, with the subsequent impounding of their vehicles, since illegals cannot obtain driver’s licenses in California (which the Supreme Court has ruled may legally be required to be shown at DUI checkpoints).

The next Monday, at the Pomona City Council meeting, one of the council members who had witnessed the police action stated that it reminded them of movie scenes depicting the Gestapo. (For those of you not up on your WWII history or who’ve never watched “Hogan’s Heroes”, that’s the secret police of Nazi Germany.) Over the next few weeks, a public uproar ensued as this council member was widely criticized for injecting Nazi imagery into the debate. In fact, the head of the Western Region of the Jewish Labor Committee (a group formed in 1934 in response to the rise of Nazism in Germany) attended the July 21st council meeting and lectured this council member on their use of the word, “Gestapo”, proclaiming “This is a blood-curling analogy. I would ask you to consider even some sensitivity training”. He added, “I just thought that what was said was insensitive enough and painful enough that someone needed to say something.”

And now the kicker –

The council member who made the “Gestapo” reference was named Cristina Carrizosa. The representative who found her remarks so painful and insensitive as to require her to consider attending sensitivity training? – Paul Koretz!

That’s right, the same Paul Koretz who just two years later, at a Los Angeles City Council meeting, thought it was perfectly acceptable for him to state that Arizona’s enforcement of Federal immigration law meant that “we were absolutely at the beginning of what went on in Nazi Germany”.

The only word to describe this behavior is hypocritical.

Did Paul Koretz somehow forget than just two years earlier he drove over an hour out to Pomona to lecture a city official about how the use of the word “Gestapo” is a “blood-curling analogy”? Did something happen in that two years that now makes it ok to invoke the specter of Nazi atrocities when criticizing government actions toward illegal immigrants without drivers licenses? Is it somehow ok only when Paul Koretz does it?

What this new information says to me, is that Paul Koretz knew exactly what he was doing when he compared Arizona to Nazi Germany. How could he not? Just two years earlier he called such language “a blood-curling analogy”. And told Cristina Carrizosa she needed “sensitivity training”.

That’s pretty strong language. You don’t just forget something like that.

After my initial conversation with Mr. Koretz, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but no longer. Not with what I know now. I believe he was being disingenuous when speaking to the Sherman Oaks Homeowner’s Association and to me directly.

Paul Koretz first tried to suggest that he was somehow being misunderstood or misquoted. Later, in response to my criticism of his actions, he said that he’d “learned something from this experience”; that he wouldn’t be repeating those remarks. Which makes it sound as though he didn’t realize that his words might be hurtful.

But this suggestion that he now realizes that maybe he shouldn’t have said it and is somewhat regretful, is impossible to reconcile with the fact that not two years earlier he was the one criticizing the use of Nazi metaphors – in an almost identical situation.

I believe that the only proper interpretation is that Paul Koretz cynically chose to use the deaths of 12 million innocent people to ingratiate himself to a group of constituents that he believed might be able to help him politically.

Paul Koretz owes an apology not only to me, but to the citizens of Los Angeles and to the Jewish community as a whole. I think he also owes an apology to the Latino community for having the nerve to criticize Ms. Carrizosa for daring to use the word “Gestapo” while reserving his right to pander to their community using the same type of hyperbole about the exact same subject matter.

Shame on Paul Koretz.

(The information regarding the Pomona controversy and the quotes attributed to Paul Koretz are from two articles by Monica Rodriguez which appeared in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in May and July of 2008. I have not been able to independently verify these quotes, but Ms. Rodriguez has confirmed with me that they are accurate.)

May 26th, 2010 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government | 3 comments

House Passes Health Reform Bill

We’re screwed. More to come…

Since I can’t feed content from Facebook directly into the blog, I decided to post the contents of a spirited debate that was started when I posted the following:

Jay Beeber:   Thomas Jefferson and the rest of our founding fathers must be spinning in their graves.

Kathy Ann Wittes
We’re going to fight back.

Kathy Ann Wittes
If you want, come to the Hollywood Republicans dinner 1st Wed in April at the

Steve Humphreys
Oh and they weren’t when we illegally invaded another country and waterboarded suspected terrorists?

Cristina Nenadov
I am with Steve!

Tom Quinn
Selective memory is so convenient, don’t you think?

Jay Beeber
@Steve are you advocating the “two wrongs make a right” theory of government?

Steve Humphreys
Jay: I’m not advocating “two wrongs make a right”. Please explain to me what is so horribly wrong with a health care policy that will help people we both know? (ie: all of our friends who have no insurance) It’s not perfect but at least after trying to do something since the deperession, it’s a start.

Louisa Cilento
I’m one of those people who’s job doesn’t provide health insurance but that didn’t stop me from getting it on my own. I’ve have my individual plan my whole life. I hate when people think not being able to afford it and don’t want to afford it are the same thing! People who don’t want to pay now are still not going to want to pay anything…and won’t. How is that right?

Tom Quinn
Well said, Louisa!

Stephanie Witherspoon
Tell that to my friend who’s stuck in a horrible job because her pre-existing conditions have meant she wouldn’t be able to change insurance carriers because the premiums would be too high, if they’d take her at all. Is it perfect? No, of course not. But it’s a step in the right direction, and the first step that’s been taken in 100 YEARS. It’s easy for people who HAVE insurance to bemoan the healthcare bill. Try talking to some people that NEEDED this change.

Robyn Castellano Rubin
Any company’s group policy would have accepted her. But not to worry, we’ll pay for everyone now so why get any job at all?

Rafferty Fartengaten
You mean you thought you weren’t paying for everyone already?! Wow, how naive. I guess if you knew you wouldn’t have agreed to that. Why do you think costs are so high? Well apart from the fact that insurance, pharmaceutical & medical supply companies can charge whatever they want. Who is going to say no. If you want no regulation like good Capitalists then accept this- in the short to medium term at least the companies have no need to have a moral responsibility, only an economic drive. So accepting that, anyone who can’t afford it should either stay sick… or “fall by the supply/demand wayside” … & by that I mean die. If you can accept that as legitimate collateral damage then bring forth complete open markets. Too many goddamn people anyway

Rafferty Fartengaten
Answer me this riddlers. I just got a prescription filled for generic Augmenten. How much without insurance is it? And how much in Australia or the UK? The basic multifunction effective antibiotic- it’s $103 here. It’s about $25 in Australia. Explain that price variation & why can’t we then just get our meds from oneseas legally if we have ‘open markets’ now. I wonder why the pharmaceutical companies would lobby the GOVT not to have that happen?

Jay Beeber
We don’t have open markets now. Health care, insurance, etc. are some of the most highly regulated industries in the US. Due to government interference, the market is not free, open or competitive. And yes, we can’t buy from overseas because the pharmaceutical industry co-opted the power of government to forbid us from doing something we should have every right to do. I don’t know the Australian system all that well, but I suspect that the drug is cheaper over there either because it is somehow subsidized by the taxpayers and/or the cost of developing the drug, getting approved, and bringing it to market is less than it is here. Another possibility is that the AU gov’t has put in place price controls and people in other countries that don’t have such controls are paying the difference.

Julien Batelaan Humphreys
Right, if she could find a job with a company providing employee health coverage, which many don’t nowadays.
And, besides, we are paying for those that don’t have it now. We pay for them to wait in long lines at USC Medical Center and get treated like subhumans (like my friend, who definitely can’t afford own her policy, and had nowhere else to go recently when she badly cut her finger).
Jay, I doubt Jefferson is spinning in his grave. He was too busy doing his female slaves to care about the many people suffering in many different ways at the time. (And, no, I’m not a Jefferson hater. Admittedly, just making a snarky point.) Brings to mind all the politicans who have been so vehemently against something that is meant to help the quality of life of their fellow Americans. Hypocrites and purveyors of death and destruction (read: our current war). Spent too much money on that to support something altruistic and for the greater good.

Jay Beeber
@Julien If it really would help the quality of life overall, I might be inclined to support it, but I believe it will make health care more expensive overall and the taxpayers will have to keep shouldering more and more of the burden down the road. To understand why I believe that, you have to read the posts on my blog, there is not enough room to put all that here. Post over there if you disagree with the facts I list and my conclusions.

But the main point of my original post is that there is supposed to be limits on what the Federal Gov’t can and can’t do. I object to people being forced to buy a product from a private company (especially companies that have a track record like the health insurance industry). Never before has the Federal Gov’t extended itself this far and I think it’s a terrible precedent to set, no matter how well intentioned. And I’ll be posting about that in detail on my blog as well if I can steal a free moment away from answering comments on FB.

March 21st, 2010 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government, Health Care | 2 comments

Lessons from the Massachusetts Special Election

To a large extent, the special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat was a referendum on the Democrats’ legislative ambitions in general and the current health care reform bill in particular. There are lessons to be learned from Scott Brown’s defeat of Martha Coakley to become the 41st Republican in the Senate, and one hopes the President and Congress are a quick study.

Contrary to what some liberals (oops, I mean “progressives”) like Michael Moore would wish to believe, the Democratic base did not desert those in power because they weren’t liberal enough. On the contrary, Brown won because independents and many moderate Democrats are unhappy with what appears to be this administration’s preference for big government solutions and the resulting increases in taxes and debt.

The health care bill is a good case in point. The President and the Democratically controlled Congress are attempting to foist upon the American people a trillion dollar health care plan, bought and paid for with backroom deals, and loaded with giveaways to the health care and health insurance industries. The President campaigned on “change”. But if this health care bill doesn’t prove that it’s still business as usual in Washington, nothing does.

So what should the President do? First, he should abandon the health care reform bill in its current form. Make no mistake, neither the House nor Senate bills address the real reasons for out of control heath care costs and would do little more than force everyone to purchase the health insurance industry’s flawed product; most likely at a higher cost. Pushing this catastrophically flawed bill through Congress, especially if the effort appears to involve any appearance of political gamesmanship, would be political suicide for the Democrats. Instead, the President and Congress should concentrate on only those reforms upon which most everyone can agree. It’s likely that with a scaled back, targeted approach to health care reform a few Republicans could be brought on board. (I’ll provide details in another post.) Not only would this be a huge win for the American people, but politically it would show that Obama is not only interested in bringing about change, he’s capable of change himself.

Second, the President should recognize that you can’t win elections without the backing of moderate and independent voters, and in Massachusetts they voted for a course correction. In his first year in office, Obama made the same mistake Bill Clinton made in 1992. Clinton beat Bush by appealing to independents and the so called “Reagan democrats”. But once in office, he pushed a classically liberal democratic agenda, the centerpiece of which was a big government health care reform bill. His approval ratings tanked and in the 1994 mid-term elections the Democrats lost control of both Houses of Congress. But Clinton learned his lesson, and for the rest of that term he chose to govern from the center, rather than the liberal left. He handily won re-election and by all accounts left office a popular and successful president. (Except, perhaps, for that impeachment thing.)

President Obama is actually lucky in that he’s had some early warning signs of the impending political disaster headed his way. If last November’s Republican gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey didn’t wake him up, certainly what happened in Massachusetts should do the trick. If he’s smart, he’ll make it clear that he’s heard the will of the people. He’ll become more fiscally conservative and dial back on his ambitious agenda. He’ll try to truly usher in an era of bipartisanship by repudiating ideas that would lead to bigger government intrusion in our lives and he’ll take a more market oriented approach to the reforms he wants to implement. He’ll steer clear of job killing legislation like Cap and Trade and he’ll consider options for reducing the deficit, not increasing it.

Hopefully, President Obama has gotten the message sent by the voters of Massachusetts. If not, in the 2010 midterm elections, it will be, as Yogi Berra used to say, deja vu all over again.

January 20th, 2010 Posted by freedomminute | Election, Federal Government, Health Care | 4 comments

The Problem with Health Insurance

In part one of this series, we looked at the underlying reasons why healthcare is so expensive. We now focus on health insurance and the role it plays in causing our health care system to be more dysfunctional than it need be. We’ll see that the health insurance system which has evolved here in the United States both contributes to the high cost of medical care and creates additional impediments to providing health care to the population as a whole.

An Historical Perspective

In order to understand health insurance in the United States, it’s necessary to know a little about how the system evolved into what we have today. An excellent history can be found here and I encourage you to read it.

To summarize, the modern health insurance system has its roots in the 1920’s. Around this time, costs for medical care began to rise due to advances in technology and a subsequent increase in demand. In addition, increased requirements for physician licensure, education and the accreditation of medical schools restricted physician supply, putting upward pressure on the costs of physicians’ services. Continue reading “The Problem with Health Insurance”

November 2nd, 2009 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government, Health Care | 4 comments

Why is Health Care So Expensive?

This is a multipart series on health care reform. You may find it easier follow the discussion from the beginning. If you haven’t already read the introduction, you can find it here.

First, we need to define what we mean when we say that health care is too expensive. Do we mean that it costs too much to visit the doctor for a checkup, or an x-ray, or a flu vaccine? Do we mean that the average person can’t afford any type of health insurance? Do we mean that if you get cancer or some other major disease or need major surgery you can’t possibly afford to pay for all the medical bills you will incur? Or are we talking about the fact that the percentage of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spent on heath care continues to increase every year and is much greater than what is spent in other Western countries?

When we break it down this way, we can see that in some cases, heath care is not “too expensive” for the average American. Most people, even those without health insurance, can afford to visit the doctor for minor or routine medical care. Sure, it might cost more than we’d like, but then again it cost me more than I’d have liked to replace the clutch in my Toyota, but I accept that as the normal cost of owning a car. If you take on the responsibility for anything, be it a car, or a house, a child, or your body, eventually you will have maintenance costs and you just have to plan for such things. Although the price of a doctor’s visit is actually more expensive in real dollars today by about a factor of two than it was in the early sixties (later we’ll discuss the reasons for that and the fact that it’s not an apples to apples comparison) the cost is still not out of reach for the average person. Likewise, while the cost of what we call health insurance (I’ll explain later why it isn’t really “insurance”) continues to increase, almost 85% of the U.S. population is able to obtain health insurance either on their own or through their employer. True, there are huge problems with health insurance that need to be addressed, but generally health insurance is still somewhat affordable for most people. Of course there is a small percentage of the population, the very poor, who can’t afford any health care or health insurance, though many of them can obtain some basic health care through existing Federal and State programs.
Continue reading “Why is Health Care So Expensive?”

September 30th, 2009 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government, Health Care | 11 comments

Health Care Reform – Introduction

I considered avoiding this topic since there’s so many others writing and talking about it, but with all the misinformation on all sides of this issue, I feel I need to bring some sanity to the conversation. Health care reform is a complicated issue and there’s no way I can cover everything that needs to be said about it here at the Freedom Minute. Countless books, research papers, college courses and articles provide volumes of information for anyone who wants to look for it. Yet most people don’t look for it. They continue with their pre-conceived ideas, certain in the correctness of their “facts”. I’ll attempt to distill down the vast amount of information available and present it in a clear and concise manner, free as much as possible from ideology and rhetoric.

I’m going to divide this up into a bunch of different posts, partly because I don’t want to have to write it all at once and partly because dividing it up will make it easier to follow. Much of what follows is not simply my opinion, but rather the result of countless hours of research and investigation. I use mostly verifiable, independent, peer-reviewed sources and if I make an assertion, I’ll attempt to cite those sources so you can check them out yourself. Mostly I’ll be paraphrasing the relevant data, but when I quote another source directly, I’ll use italics so you know when that’s happening.
Continue reading “Health Care Reform – Introduction”

September 30th, 2009 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government, Health Care, Libertarian Philosophy | no comments

Cash for Clunkers: Success or Failure?

As the “cash for clunkers” program came to a close this past week, government officials fell all over themselves declaring what a huge success the program has been. “This is one of the best economic news stories we’ve seen, and I’m proud we were able to give consumers a helping hand,” gushed Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The positive spin is certainly not surprising considering the federal government just spent $3 billion of your tax dollars (or more correctly, added $3 billion to the national debt which will have to be paid back, with interest, from future tax revenues). And when they pony up that kind of coin, we’re certainly not going to hear anything coming from Washington other than the sound of our elected officials patting themselves on the back. True, if you’re one of the roughly 700,000 who were able to take advantage of the government’s largess, it’s likely you consider the program a success as well. And who’s to blame you. It’s not often you can get the government to reallocate $4500 of someone else’s money to you so you can buy a new car.

But those of us who understand that there is no free lunch realize that when the government engages in this kind of economic sleight of hand, there is always something on the other side of the equation, hidden from view, which balances out all the “benefits”. Plus, we’ll have to deal with all those pesky unintended consequences which always occur. So let’s take a look at the entirety of the cash for clunkers program and see whether or not it really was a good deal for America.
Continue reading “Cash for Clunkers: Success or Failure?”

August 29th, 2009 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government, Libertarian Philosophy | 6 comments

What Should I Ask the President?

Just got word from the White House that The Freedom Minute will be attending the Obama townhall meeting in Los Angeles on Thursday. I’m hoping to get a chance to ask a question, but either way, you can be sure I’ll be posting about my experiences and candid impressions. Stay tuned…

March 17th, 2009 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government | no comments

What You Really Learn in Math 101

In a recent opinion piece on the Sacramento Bee’s web site, Dan Walters criticizes those who oppose the recent budget deal as panderers, suggesting that they’re somehow dishonest in their opposition. Read the piece here:

California budget’s foes pander on the numbers

I’m reposting my response here because comments on the Bee’s website only allows 1000 characters and I had to cut it up into five different posts:

Dan,

If you’re going to write an opinion piece on the state budget, it might be helpful for you to provide at least one fact or piece of evidence to support your claims. Basically you are claiming that the budget couldn’t be balanced unless taxes were raised. Then you go on to criticize two potential gubernatorial candidates for not giving specifics as to how they would have balanced the budget. But what’s sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander. It’s intellectually dishonest for you to make the claims you do without backing them up. You simply proclaim that the governor is right but then offer no proof or at least a counter argument to those who claim the tax increase wasn’t necessary.

So let me provide a few examples of how to back up an assertion:

You claim that Steve Poizner is pandering when he called the budget “a financial fiasco”. It isn’t pandering to say that raising taxes in a recession would be extremely harmful to the economy when virtually every economist would agree that it’s the likely outcome. Furthermore, we have historical evidence that this budget will worsen our financial problems. In 1994, Republican Governor Pete Wilson went along with the Democratic Legislature’s attempt to eliminate the (at that time) historic $14 billion deficit with $7 billion in tax hikes and $7 billion in spending cuts. This resulted in a deeper and more sustained recession and the deficit quickly re-appeared because revenues shrank further due to the tax increases. Prosperity only returned when the tax increases expired. There’s certainly every reason to believe that the basic laws of economics will apply this time as well. And we’ll likely have “a financial fiasco” on our hands as we did before.

You further take Poizner to task for saying, “When politicians who were elected to oppose more taxes end up supporting them, this is not a hard choice – it’s a broken promise.” Well, every Republican in the State legislature signed a pledge not to raise taxes and then six of them voted for a budget that included over $12 billion in tax increases. The Governor unequivocally made that same pledge verbally numerous times as well and then approved the largest single tax increase by any State in U.S. history. I’m not sure what you’d call it, but in my book that’s pretty much the definition of breaking your promise.

Now let’s turn to your claim that the budget couldn’t be balanced without tax increases. This is false and I’ll give you and our esteemed Governor a much needed math lesson. The final budget raised taxes by about $12.5 billion. Here’s how you find that much without the taxes:

As reported in the SacBee on Dec. 15th, the Republicans proposed the following:

Redirect Proposition 10 unspent funds – $2.1 billion
Redirect Proposition 63 unspent funds – $3.9 billion
Transfer from trial court improvement fund – $61 million
Fund transfers from Department of Parks and Recreation – $27 million
Delay loan repayment to Integrated Waste Management Board – $21 million
Delay loan repayment to Public Utilities Commission – $5 million
Motor Vehicle Account Fund Transfer – $170 million
Redirect tribal gaming payments for transportation loans – $200 million

This comes to about $7 billion. Now add Senator Chuck DeVore’s plan to permit oil slant drilling which would allow us to borrow up to $5 billion against future revenues. That’s $12 billion right there. Now that’s not the only way to get the needed funds. Preferably, the legislature could just cut $12 billion of the $40 billion increase in state spending that occurred over the last 5 years. Or cut some of the 175,000 new state workers who were added to the state payroll over the last decade. (I’ll do the math for you – That’s 48 jobs added per day.)

My point is that it’s disingenuous to say the budget couldn’t be balanced without raising taxes. The truth is that it would have been politically difficult, not mathematically impossible. Of course, maybe in Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Math 101 class they only teach you how to balance the budget by raising taxes. Keeping your word and making politically difficult decisions must be taught in one of the advanced courses.

February 24th, 2009 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government | no comments

Get Mad as Hell and Don’t Take it Anymore

In case you haven’t heard, another AIG subsidiary, International Lease Finance Corp., threw a lavish party at the Smithsonian just 4 days after US taxpayers bailed out parent AIG to the tune of $85 billion.

Read the story here.

This is in addition to the now infamous $443,344 spa retreat at the exclusive St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort for executives of AIG subsidiary, AIG American General, which prompted Barack Obama to suggest during Tuesday’s debate that the Treasury should demand the money back and fire the executives.

And this week the feds agreed to loan AIG another $37.8 billion. If you want to make your voice heard on how your tax dollars are being wasted, go to this link to look up the contact information for your congressional representatives.

Make a phone call if you can. It’s much more effective than an email.

October 10th, 2008 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government | 2 comments