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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Ben Domenech is joined by John Garen a professor in economics at the University of Kentucky and adjunct scholar at the Bluegrass Institute to discuss what lessons can be learned from the state of Kentucky where one in five people are enrolled in Medicaid as costs skyrocket and quality of care plummets.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

An Unsustainable Path: The Past and Future of Kentucky Medicaid Spending”
More Medicaid Delusion
Kentucky looks at Medicaid concerns
Beshear close on Medicaid plan but misses deadline
The Bluegrass Institute

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The political consequence of this article seems to be that the simplest solution to global warming is for the Chinese to burn more coal, which they intend to do anyway…

– Dr. Judith Curry, Georgia Tech University.

The AGW pep-squad has lately found itself befuddled. Kevin Trenbarth of NCAR National laboratory in Colorado, summed up their problem in an email to Dr. Michael Mann.

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

Fear not, holders of scientific grants to study AGW. The Earth still has a fever! The devious Chinese have just masked it according to Dr. Mann’s most recent dexterous manipulation of scientific truth. Co-authoring with Dr. Robert Kaufmann, an economist from Boston, he has written an entertaining new version of The China Syndrome entitled “Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998-2008.”

Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008…..Declining solar insolation as part of a normal eleven-year cycle, and a cyclical change from an El Nino to a La Nina dominate our measure of anthropogenic effects because rapid growth in short-lived sulfur emissions partially offsets rising greenhouse gas concentrations.

Dr. Mann claims the increased amount of coal dirt aloft has led to a cancellation effect that prevented Global Warming. It will, he assures us, be temporary. Congress must therefore send him more money of course.

Dr. Judith Curry isn’t buying that which Dr. Mann has for sale. She points out that the global aerosol mass-loading remained virtually unchanged from 2000-2006. This occurred in partially synonymy with an observed increase in Chinese coal use from 2004 to 2007. It doesn’t take a genius grant to determine the problems with Dr. Mann’s hastily jerry-built answer to Dr. Trenbarth’s epistemological dilemma.

The sulfur liberated airborne when coal is burned gets entrained by water droplets and forms sulfuric acid in a liquid state. This liquid film then coats solid dirt particles that typically form clouds. These are known as Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN). From that time on, the days which these coated aerosols remain aloft are numbered.

Gravity and rainfall go to work and reduce the concentrations of these nasty acid balls within a week or two. Think of the thunderstorm you see as how the lower atmosphere takes a bath. Thus the sulfur that gets emitted in East Asia will pretty much fall out of the sky somewhere in the general vicinity of the Asian Coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The CO2 emitted by China is a totally different story. CO2 remains gaseous and has an atmospheric half-life measurable in years. This is why Al Gore gets one thing right in An Inconvenient Truth by using CO2 levels measured in Hawai’i as a proxy for CO2 levels throughout the Earth’s Troposphere. Atmospheric Chemists thus describe CO2 as a well-mixed atmospheric pollutant.

This further explains why Cap and Trade plans such as Waxman-Markey can actually succeed in reducing acid rainfall, but would fail epically at preventing continued Global Warming. Sulfur emissions in China will never produce acid rain in The Adirondack Mountains. CO2 emissions from China will travel the world like Al Gore in his private jet.

Thus, capping CO2 emissions in the US, forcing US corporations to shut down their factories and reopen in China, will cap US employment emissions and trade more of our economic power abroad. Nice try, Dr. Mann. You, Kevin Trenbarth and the rest of the Climate Scientologists peddling AGW still have a serious AGW problem.

P.S. Here’s an area where the US Environmental Movement (and Federal Government) should tell Dr. Mann to go (NSFW) himself and proudly and rightfully proclaim victory! Team America, Baby! What masks Global Warming here, Dr. Mann?

No, Dr. Mann, The Earth Does Not Have More Sulfur Pollution Than in 1998.

PJ Tatler caught this one.  President Barack Obama, during his so-called “Twitter Town Hall” yesterday:

…we will have to make tough decisions about Defense spending, or even on programs that I like…

(Via Jim Geraghty)

Seriously, the administration needs to cut down on the number of occasions where the President is allowed to talk off the cuff, and unscripted. He’s incredibly bad at avoiding disaster at such things.

Open thread.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: No, he said it.

Does the party of freedom have less courage than the party of socialism? Jim DeMint thinks if the GOP fails to be bold in the debt ceiling fight that’ll be why.

As the sun rises this morning, be prepared to be completely and totally disappointed in the total lack of leadership by House Republicans when it comes to taking a bold stand in the debt ceiling fight.

Just how badly are supposedly “tea party friendly” House Republicans abandoning conservatives? Olympia Snowe of Maine has gotten to the right of them. They should all break out the leather braids and self-flagellate. Shame on them.

It’s true. This morning in the Wall Street Journal, Jim DeMint and Olympia Snowe are tag teaming an op-ed endorsing the Cut, Cap, and Balance Pledge. They are calling on Republicans to block all deals that raise taxes . . . . or . . . um . . . “fees” as they like to call them, and instead turn their attention to three things:

1. Cut spending significantly.
2. Enact an enforceable cap on future spending.
3. Pass the Lee-Cornyn-Hatch Balanced Budget Amendment.

Ridiculously, conservatives in the House are dragging their feet.

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RedState Morning Briefing
For July 7, 2011

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

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I remember when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act passed. It created a boatload of new rules and restrictions on Americans, in the name of tightening copyright online. One of the key provisions of the DMCA is the “safe harbor” rule, which effectively turns ISPs into agents of copyright, by making them honor so-called DMCA takedown notices in exchange for not being held responsible for what’s put by their customers on their public servers.

We were supposed to accept harsh limitations on basic practices like reverse engineering, in order to get what we were told were strong and effective copyright protections. So when I see new copyright criminalization proposed, I have to ask: Did the DMCA fail? Should we repeal it then? Or are we just throwing a bone to the RIAA and MPAA who don’t want to have to bother enforcing their own rights anymore, and get a subsidy from the DoJ to enforce it for them? Come on.

Sure, Some are saying it’s not as bad as it sounded, but if one policy failed, we can’t just keep adding new ones. Repeal and replace, don’t just create an ever-greater web of problems. Or better: just tweak the DMCA instead of adding whole new criminal provisions! Let’s not grow government more than we have to just because big business asks for it. I’m not anti-business, but I’m always wary when big business and big government work together.

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From the diaries by Erick. Have you contributed to Adam’s campaign yet?

Here’s an interesting survey conducted by the St. Pete Times:

St. Petersburg Times | The Buzz | The Fla Insider Poll: Adam Hasner is early favorite to win GOP Sen nomination

The Times reached out to people who they deemed to be “dozens of smart Florida politicos…the savviest political minds in the state – professional strategists, fundraisers, lobbyists, and grass roots activists” and questioned them about the 2012 U.S. Senate race in Florida. The respondents’ names are listed in the article, but their responses are reported anonymously. Looking over the list, it does include a solid cross-section of known liberals, moderates, and conservatives from all over the state.

More than half of the 79 respondents said Adam Hasner was the most conservative candidate in the race, and 35 predicted that Hasner would win the GOP primary. Most also believe that Bill Nelson is likely to win re-election.

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To a certain extent, I live in a cave when it comes to following the news, particularly when it comes to media coverage of sensational trials, which tends to drive me around the bend. Therefore, I seriously had never heard of the Casey Anthony trial even as recently as Sunday night. Therefore, I have no strong opinions on whether Casey Anthony is actually guilty of the crime with which she was charged, or whether the result of the trial was a good or bad thing for our society.

I gather, however, that many people are truly outraged at the fact that Casey Anthony is not going to jail, and I’m genuinely puzzled as to why. Let us suppose that everything the prosecution alleged about Casey Anthony is true – that she decided she didn’t want to be a mom anymore, killed her small child with chloroform, dumped her body unceremoniously in a swamp, and proceeded to go out partying for the next 30 days. While I agree that this is reprehensible behavior, our Supreme Court decided in 1973 that it was also constitutionally protected behavior, and that if mothers decide they want to kill their children in order to prevent an interruption in their nightlife, then the State can’t say “boo” about it one way or the other, so long as the child is in utero.

Thousands of mothers every day decide they’d rather party/go to school/whatever than be a mom, and so they hire a doctor to kill their baby with either sharp instruments or chemicals and then have them dropped in a trash can. Thousands a day. Hundreds of thousands (if not over a million) a year in this country alone. And the only difference between them and and Casey Anthony is that they realized that they didn’t want to be a mom before the child escaped the womb. None of them will ever face even the threat of prosecution, thanks to the Supreme Court.

It just seems harsh to me that we’d try to send Casey Anthony to jail for what amounts to lack of foresight.

Tonight on WSB, I’ll start and end the show with my weekly take on the Presidential Horse Race. I’m going to get into the alleged deal on Capitol Hill. And the jurors are speaking about Casey Anthony. I’m finally intrigued by the case.

You can listen live at http://wsbradio.com and call in at 1-800-WSB-TALK.

Consider this an open thread.

One of the more intractable components of our foreign policy dating back to the Clinton years has been the obsession of creating a Palestinian state.  The career egghead diplomats in the State Department believed that if we would only send billions in aid to the venerable leaders of the Palestinian Authority and grant them statehood, they would put down their terror toys and sing kumbaya.  To that end, we have given them billions in aid and provided them with military training during the past two decades.

Those of us who lack the credulity of a toddler understand that Mahmoud Abbas is not a dulcet freedom-lover, and the PA/Fatah is not a moderate Muslim boys’ club.  It’s time to end the good cop/bad cop charade between the “extremist” Hamas and the “moderate” Fatah – by treating them as co-equal perpetrators of terror.  Abbas has repeatedly called for armed struggle against Israel (in Arabic, of course), glorified suicide bombers, and is closely linked with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an Iranian-funded terror group that rivals Hamas in its ferocity in recent years.

Congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL) is introducing legislation today that will finally halt the open-ended commitment to the Palestinians.  No, a few hundred million dollars in cuts will not balance the budget; however, we should not be sending one red cent to terrorists anywhere in the world.

Here are some details of the bill from a Dear Colleague letter sent by Congressman Walsh:

Among its various provisions, the Palestinian Accountability Act will require the following actions from the Palestinian Authority as prerequisites for any U.S. aid:

·        That it end corruption, promote democracy, and stop influencing elections in Palestinian territories;

·        Strongly condemn terrorism, bring terrorists to justice, and end the incitement to violence and hatred;

·        Recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state;

·        And either exclude Hamas from government or publicly bind it to this Act’s requirements.

In addition, should the United Nations or any of its entities unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, the United States will withhold funding from the United Nations until the Secretary of State has certified that the Palestinian Authority has met this Act’s requirements.  The Palestinian Authority must be held accountable for its actions.

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… And by “little people” I mean Speaker John Boehner and NYT Columnist Nick Kristof.

Speaker Boehner’s question read “After embarking on a record spending binge that’s left us deeper in debt, where are the jobs?” Obama kicked off his answer by saying “Well, obviously, John’s the Speaker of the House… he’s a Republican, so this is a slightly skewed question.” Maybe it would be easier for you to answer, Mr. President, if it came from your frends at the AFL-CIO? No? Alright then.

There were other questions… a cherry picked handful of softballs, all of which could have been (and were, indirectly) answered with a link back to the official WhiteHouse.gov site. If you missed it, here it is, broken down question by question.

The event itself was relatively uneventful. President Obama delivered his standard long-winded responses. He tweeted from the stage, taking time to note that it was an unprecedented move for a President to “live-tweet”. Ultimately, it was a way for him to take questions and keep up appearances without dealing with reporters and their messy follow up questions. It was also, however, a novel thing to do, and was able to generate plenty of buzz.

What the White House failed to consider is that the one place conservatives dominate on the “Internets“ is Twitter.

Giving snarky Twitter users an #askobama opportunity is like Christmas in July, and the opportunity was seized. GOP leaders and conservative influencers were all in on the game, drawing more and more people in as the 2pm start time came closer. The Huffington Post chimed in earlier to say Republicans were crashing the town hall. (Is it a problem for Republicans to ask the President questions, too? He is, after all, the President of both Democrats and Republicans.) The Wall Street Journal also jumped in, highlighting tweets from the #askobama stream. The President’s team had thrown him into the proverbial Lion’s Den.

The end result was that it fell a little flat. The “curators” couldn’t hand Obama the hard questions, and no one really got any answers. Obama can still say he did something new and groundbreaking. Many will see it as a desperate attempt to revitalize the waning support he had among the youth in 2008, and they’re probably right.

The sound that you’re hearing is the muttered “Uh-oh” of a plethora of staffers at the Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives. Of particular interest is the letter that Oversight Chair Darrell Issa and Judiciary Ranking Member (for now) Chuck Grassley sent to Attorney General (for now) Eric Holder regarding Melson’s testimony… but we’ll get that in a moment.

For those coming in late: Issa and Grassley are investigating the horrifically botched Fast & Furious program that Justice/BATFE had put together, starting in late 2009. F&F was this ingenious method by which the federal government ended up knowingly and deliberately permitted illegally-resold firearms to be supplied to Mexican narco-terrorists; said narco-terrorists then proceeded to use those guns to shoot various hostages, Mexican civilians and police officers, at least one US Border Agent… as you can imagine, the Mexican government is not exactly pleased about any of this, which is why elements within said government are currently muttering about extradition treaties. This is where Kenneth Melson comes in: he is the Acting Director of BATFE, and was apparently picked to be the duly-assigned sacrificial lamb in this particular drama.

Only, it turns out that Melson doesn’t actually believe in any of that dulce et decorum est pro Duce mori stuff; so he grabbed a lawyer and started talking to Issa & Grassley – on July 4th, no less.

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