Roy Ramthun has written a great paper on HHS’s proposed-final regulation on Medical Loss Ratio, and how it will impact HSAs and other Bronze Plans in the exchanges:

The final medical loss ratio (MLR) regulations will likely create a vacuum for affordable coverage that cannot be filled by Bronze plans under the state insurance exchanges. If the “essential benefits” and “actuarial value” requirements are equally as discriminatory, there will be no affordable options available and the cost of subsidies will skyrocket. As a result, millions of Americans that have policies today that could have qualified as Bronze plans will be forced to change their coverage or drop coverage because they can no longer afford it.

Ramthun’s paper is here.

My last RedState post, which is on this exact subject, is here.

Roy has outlined how you can help, by commenting on the HHS rule — but you must comment by the January 6, 2012 deadline!

The urge of government health care bureaucrats to impose their will on the market, regardless of warnings and repeated petitioning for redress for relief, overpowered petitions in the latest medical loss ratio (MLR) rule by HHS.

The result of the new rule will mean one thing: no bronze plans, at all, in the ObamaCare exchanges. (Bronze plans are the low cost plan that ObamaCare envisioned in their exchanges.)

The future of the exchanges is clear — it will be populated with expensive plans for the less healthy. The healthy will simply go without insurance or find it outside the exchanges — at least until they become sick.

The government bureaucrat’s “management” of the market is management by bias. This bias has resulted in the bureaucrats rejecting out-of-hand, simple fixes for simple problems with the medical loss ratio rule.

For example, the health savings account qualified health plan, and other health plans with healthy deductibles, cannot meet the the MLR limits set by the rule. Not because HSA qualified plans are inherently incapable of meeting the MRL limits, but because the rules of how MLR is computed discriminates against HSAs and other health plans with higher deductibles.

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Cowards have no business making hard choices. They are psychologically, physiologically and spiritually deficient, and cannot (are incapable) of making the right choice. They are not built for it — because they are cowards.

Furthermore, they are so afraid, they will not allow those with courage to make the right choice for them.

Cowardliness is rampant in the West and epidemic in the Western financial elite.

Cowardliness is the driving force behind the elites inability to stop doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

In order to continue be cowardly, the West creates bigger and bigger bailouts — for nation states that cannot stop giving money and services away because it is somehow moral to bankrupt everyone in the name of giving a class of people what others make and create.

The planned International Monetary Fund $800 billion bailout of Spain and Italy is the latest cowardly act of the Western financial elite. It is another prime example of cowards who take the easy path out every time. A key part of the groupthink-gone-wild–is that the repeated failure of the repeated bailouts of Greece is actively ignored.

Printing Euros, printing dollars, piling more debt on old debt and debasing Western currency will not change the strategic nature of the debt crisis — is the only solution they ever try. All the while, the foundations of the strategic debt crisis — Western spending on social services like health care, retirement payments — are left unchanged in any meaningful sense.

Each time there is a bailout the cries and shouting of cuts in spending are proclaimed loudly and dutifully printed and carried on television by the international media elite, all the while, money is printed or borrowed and handed over.

Oh, and no real cuts never, ever happen. Remember the “debt ceiling” debate? Guess how much spending the U.S. cut in 2012? You will never, ever guess. The Congressional Budget Office announced the cuts in 2012 — a whopping $1 billion.

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In a little noticed conference call between the White House and the media last week, the Obama Administration’s embrace of the Occupy Wall Street radicals went from the courting stage to a full-blown love-fest.

In an effort to force Senate Republicans to capitulate and confirm ethically challenged former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head a new regulation producing agency known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Stephanie Cutter embraced Occupy Wall Street as the political reason Republicans should end their opposition to Cordray.

“The sentiments that lots of people who are out there as part of ‘Occupy Wall Street’ have — not just on Wall Street but on Main Streets across the country — those sentiments are shared by lots of Americans,” she said. “Having Richard Cordray in place obviously would help them.”

There you have it. Not only do we need a CFPB, according to the White House, we need a CFPB in order to help the Occupy Wall Street radicals burning cars, destroying property and defecating on police cars, or the man who died of a gunshot, (not to mention the sexual assaults) or the tuberculosis at the squatter camp Occupy Atlanta.

First, it is critical to remember that Cordray is no “consumer” advocate. He is a crony-capitalist. His cronies were the securities litigators seeking windfall payouts from their lawsuits. Of course, hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to the Ohio Democrat Party had nothing to do with the fact that Cordray deputized these firms to sue pension funds on behalf of the state.

Second, with the economy tanking, the last thing we need is another agency of government churning new federal regulations. But hey, the Democrats can continue to blame the banks for their inability to grow the economy.

Even though more regulation is exactly what the economy does not need, it is exactly what the CFPB is preparing to do.

At a recent congressional hearing, Raj Date, the interim head of the CFPB, released an 802-page report preparing the Bureau for a rash of regulations that will hinder the market.

This is the part where the regulation by consensus between the regulated and the regulators becomes regulation by force by bureaucrats who do not have the best interest of the industry (jobs and profits) at heart, but have empowerment of their position at heart and the general urge to disallow innovation and efficiency.

But the CFPB is one of the main agencies that pay their employees more than the $225,000 limit allowed by law. (They asked their pals, the regulators for waivers, and got them.) You see, the law is for you, but not for the government regulators.

Third, created as a government agency segregated from traditional oversight and congressional checks and balances, when the Bureau decides to regulate the economy, there is little anyone can do about it. If you are targeted, don’t turn to your congressman for help.

Why? The CFPB is funded without a single appropriation by Congress, the will of the people does not come into play, at all. The single source of funds for the CFPB is the Federal Reserve – who answers to no one, other than the Federal Reserve. (This single source funding will also further degrade the political position of the Federal Reserve; since the CFPB will become yet another issue act as a force to put legislative reform of the Federal Reserve on the table. Poor decisions, or politically motivated decisions by the CFPB, will feed the cries for we-really-need-to-pass-a-law to reform the Fed.)

Strangely, the White House is correct. Confirmation of Richard Cordray to head the CFPB will empower the Occupy Wall Street movement with a government agency modeled after its image – and it is exactly why Republicans should never allow Cordray to be confirmed in the U.S. Senate.

From the diaries by Erick

So, this morning, were the lead stories on television that Nancy Pelosi, whose belittling and famous “Are you serious? Are you serious?” response to being asked about the challenge to the ObamaCare individual mandate, was the perfect illustration of her radical and out-of-touch mental state — and that she is as out of touch as former President Bush was when he expressed amazement at grocery store price scanners?

Uh, no. (The media’s obsession with the Penn State sex scandal can be explained by the fact they think it will hurt Herman Cain.)

Meanwhile, the voters in the ultimate Presidential election swing state just handed the repeal ObamaCare team a massive victory right before the Supremes take up the case, and if it made the news, it was way down the list.

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Wait, there is yet another “Greek financial crisis” story out of Europe.

Yawn. Yawn again.

When the royalty of Europe spent to much, the result was, “Quick — tax the subjects!” This has been the preferred mode in dealing with bailing out those who lent to Greece.

But now the lenders are now finding out it was the gypsy Madame Zorba who wrote their fictional economic projections. The crystal ball was, uh, wrong.

A Greek bailout is now political anthrax, even in socialist Europe. Especially in Germany. Europe can’t tax the citizens more to keep Greece alive for another few quarters. So, bailouts have lost their potency. (Shockingly, the addict keeps demanding more and more of the drug.)

So, what to do, what to do?

Since taxing the citizens is out — the world’s financial elite have decided on something completely different.

Print dollars. Print pounds. Print Euros. (Er, now it’s type in the numbers into a computer — printing is so passe.)

To borrow a line from Donald Trump, “What the hell could possibly go wrong?“

The arrogance of man knows no bounds.

Just look at “the One,” our President.

His arrogance is destructive and blinding to his own eyes, and those closest to him. Listening to “the One” is like listening to the patronizing and condescending tones of scientists explaining nothing can travel faster than light.

Except now, 160 scientists from 11 countries can’t figure out how a particle from the CERN supercollider in Europe arrived — and the experiment was repeated for three years, fifteen thousand times — faster than the speed of light at an underground lab in Gran Sasso, Italy.

But scientists are such black-and-white dogmatics — since we don’t understand how it can be, it therefore is not.

Such is the arrogance of man.

As I have written before on RedState, in my view, those who do not believe in intelligent alien life are like those who believed the world was flat.

And most of those who believed the world was flat never took the time to understand or look at the evidence that the world was not flat. They simply accepted it was so, because they were told.

So now, a “universal truth” of science has been shown, in fact, to be wrong.

Just imagine all the vibrating-in-place of those who are not mentally prepared for the truth that intelligent alien life does exist.

People wonder where is the video evidence of intelligent alien life.

What makes you assume that just because video evidence exists, anyone will look at it?

Look now, or not.

Isn’t it just more comfortable believing the faster than the speed of light is impossible? After all, it has been a “universal constant” that all of human physics has been built on.

Similarly, isn’t it much more comfortable believing humans are the only intelligent beings in the universe, so much more comfortable that that clear video evidence — such as linked to above — is not even watched?

Oh yeah, the arrogant human never listens.

But they do get upset. And scare easily.

Certainly, most Presidents have been tempted to do what ever it is they want, and most do not, because they listen to those around them and find out they do not know as much as they thought they knew.

This problem has zero impact on our current President — as Peretz writes in the New Republic — “the arrogance that is so characteristic of his behavior in matters he knows little about (which is a lot of matters),” or, alternatively, “the One” always knows best.

President Obama was elected as a candidate that could transcend the politics of the usual, and great hope was placed in him by the majority of the American people — hope that was promptly shredded by his own actions.

The President immediately settled on two courses of actions that has bled him dry of any political capital: a trillion dollar stimulus and ObamaCare.

The stimulus has not lowered the unemployment rate, has not turned the economy around, has swollen the roles of government workers and has pumped unearned government money into his own widely touted “green economy,” that the market would not touch with a twenty-foot pole. (It also paid for $16 muffins at the Justice Department.)

Solyndra — and the next company similarly favored that fails — will keep the promises of the “green economy” well tattered and discredited in the eyes of the public.

The fact the President abandoned cap and tax after it passed the U.S House, was a function of the time and the political capital that ObamaCare consumed, not any political calculation on the part of the White House. But even talking about cap and tax and passing it in the U.S. House hurt the Dems up for re-election in 2010 — just ask former Dem Rep. Boucher of VA.

ObamaCare, the President’s obsession, is the gift that keeps on giving to the Republicans — a fact the Republicans and others repeatedly tried to warn the Democrats and the President about — but the Democrats simply did not listen or believe that ObamaCare could be, or would be, the sucking chest wound it has been since the fall of 2009. (In political years, that’s a decade of political pain for the Dems.) Even liberals like Howard Fineman finally concluded this month that ObamaCare was the President’s biggest political miscalculation. Shocking it took Fineman this long to figure that out, isn’t it?

Simply put, the 83 new Freshmen GOP House members from the 2010 elections are evidence of the shock and awe that ObamaCare’s politics visited on the Dems.

The debt ceiling fight resulted in S&P (along with many others) lowering the U.S. credit rating, which came as no surprise to most, but the White House reacted as if in shock, especially strange since the U.S. debt has exploded by $4 Trillion in the 32 months Obama has been President. The voters, already concerned about debt, became more concerned.

But despite promises of cutting spending, a month after the debt limit fight, Obama went back to do what he always does — spend money. His half a trillion dollar “jobs” plan is half of the full trillion dollar plan Rep. Maxine Waters wanted. Obama pulled his half-Maxine out of the hat, and the global markets dropped like a stone.

In an effort to then seem like he was listening to the cries for lower spending, Obama announced a massive tax increase that he insisted was a plan to cut spending, despite that fact that for every one dollar that he promised would be cut (really, some time in the future) he wants $3 in tax increases.

It’s not a spending cut plan, it’s a tax hike plan — prompting the moderate Ross Douthat to write in the New York Times “the President will be running in 2012 as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.” In that case, the President might as well be infecting the Dems up in 2012 with the black plague.

Here is a handy chart showing just how big and repeatedly “the One” has, by his own hand, failed politically. This chart is especially startling given the fact that Obama claims to be a better political director than his political director:

Obama-Initiatives.

For those wondering what in the heck the Japanese Divine Wind is, click here.

As whispers became shrill rumors of a Greek default last week, it became clear that the Federal Reserve was going to “inject liquidity” into the French banks that could not find overnight funds on the open market.

Markets are disciplined. The Federal Reserve magic money machine is not. When the market decided the three French banks were over-extended in Greece, and loaning them money was a risk not worth taking, the Fed and other central banks stepped in, with fresh, new magic money, to take risks the market was not willing to take.

The French, meanwhile, were protesting that they did what all the global finance geniuses wanted them to do, loan give the Greeks money.

But the fiscal mirage of Greek economic growth with draconian cuts, and accurate financials all came crashing down when the Greek financials and estimates of growth turned out to be written by Madam Zorba, the gypsy fortune-teller.

Then the market really puckered up, with no love cash for the French.

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It’s amazing what happens when the White House actually produces a bill, you know, with the proposal in legislative language.

It’s a half a trillion dollar stimulus bill, which raises taxes on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).

Here is an analysis of the bill on RedState.

If you make north of a household income of “x” there is a new type of tax increase for you and yours.

Any tax deduction you take, for your home mortgage, for your health insurance, or for your Health Savings Account, are all subject to being limited.

It’s a universal tax break limitation on all tax breaks for those “the One” defines as wealthy.

It’s a tax. A tax to pay for a “jobs” bill that won’t produce jobs, just like the trillion dollars “the One” spent with no increase in jobs.

For the few Americans actually buying homes, taxing their ability to do so will further tank the housing market, which will have a greater negative impact on jobs than anything in the fundamentally flawed bill — which presupposes Washington can interfere in the market some more, and create jobs.

Furthermore, the trend we have been seeing, that ObamaCare will increase the cost of health insurance and health care is built upon again. What else can increase health care costs more than taxing the lowest cost health care option on the market, a Health Savings Account?

It is more of the same by “the One,” and his attempts to injure, hobble and maim HSAs.

You will find the tax in Title IV, Section 4:

Subtitle A – 28 Percent Limitation on Certain Deductions and Exclusions

Section 401 – 28 Percent Limitation on Certain Deductions And Exclusions. This section would limit the value of all itemized deductions and certain other tax expenditures for high-income taxpayers by limiting the tax value of otherwise allowable deductions and exclusions to 28 percent. No taxpayer with adjusted gross income under $250,000 for married couples filing jointly (or $200,000 for single taxpayers) would be subject to this limitation. The limitation would affect itemized deductions and certain other tax expenditures that would otherwise reduce taxable income in the 36 or 39.6 percent tax brackets. A similar limitation also would apply under the alternative minimum tax. This section would be effective for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2013.

For those who have an HSA and don’t want it taxed, call or write your Senator and your Congressman and let them know — this provision is unacceptable!

Cross posted at the HSA Coalition.

Well, get ready for the next crash — and for the Federal Reserve to start cranking up the printing presses — or, rather, creating tens and hundreds of billions via their computer keyboard. After all, why print dollars, when you can type? Printing is expensive and time consuming and typing is faster — you can create tens of billions in seconds.

When French banks can’t borrow overnight funds on the open market, because they have contracted Greek contagion, and world-wide, banks are just saying No — where are the French to turn? The Greeks have their cash, and the French can’t get it back.

The Federal Reserve’s latest attempts at “stabilization,” which means, they print money, debase our currency, which in turn forces the global market to convert their US dollars into something that holds its value, oh, say, things like oil, gas, rice, corn — gold, is about to go another round. This time it’s Europe that gets Federal Reserve funds created via keystroke, not Wall Street.

“The One” is on board, and is now saying that the American recovery is dependent on the EuroZone.

You don’t like it? Tough. The Federal Reserve can do what ever the heck it wants, to paraphrase Sarah Palin.

Now that the Greeks have handed over wholesale fiction masquerading as financial reports, or that old oxymoron, the Greek “balance sheet,” to the global financial community, how does bailing out the Greeks have any credibility, whatsoever?

Here is how: the U.S. Treasury Secretary is on a plane to Poland to strong arm more countries to pour money down the Greek black hole.

How many times has the world heard this problem has been solved — by giving the Greeks more money?

I don’t know about you, but that is exactly how my bank works — Dude, I blew all the cash you gave me — can I have some more?

And that’s exactly what they do, these great financial wizards of the global marketplace, just fork over more cash.

That doesn’t work for you? Really? It works just great for the Greeks, and now the French are about to get in on the fun.

The collective political elite choked on their Diet Cokes and Starbuck’s when Gov. Perry called Social Security a Ponzi scheme — you know, where you pay in more money than you get back because someone spent it on something else — well, similarly, the global financial elite are simply aghast that anyone would question their wisdom of giving cash first to the Greeks, and now to others, like the French, who gave money to the Greeks — all because the Greeks can’t pay it back. The U.S. Supreme Court found that Americans have no right to Social Security funds, similarly, those who loaned the Greeks cash, have no guarantee of being paid back — regardless of what Secretary of Treasury says to those gathered in Poland.

What is at stake is the credibility of everyone involved in bailing out the Greeks, and now bailing out those (fill in the blank ________) who loaned the Greeks money.

In fact, the financial elite is just like the Greeks, they will say anything to get their hands on more freshly created U.S. currency, and because they all know each other, and hey, it’s all in the family.

The average American loses by having to use more devalued dollars to buy less, but who cares?

The real question is, do they know what is at stake? Their credibility, first and foremost. Second, when TIME magazine publishes a piece titled, “It’s Time to Admit the Euro Failed,” the global elite may end up critically injuring the Euro because they refuse to stop bailing out the Greeks. (It’s a bailout because the Greeks can’t and won’t pay it back.)

I’ll say it. The failed stimulus, ObamaCare’s impact on the economy, and the fact that nothing has improved in the job market — including the continuing failure of the Greek bailout — has all conspired to raise great skepticism among the public about the global financial elite. Especially when it comes to printing money and handing it over to foreigners.

This is the part where the Federal Reserve is truly facing that moment, you know, do you cut the blue wire or the red wire to defuse the bomb — or set it off?

If the Federal Reserve has any regard for its future or its current mission, then they will run from bailing out French banks too overloaded with Greek debt to get overnight funds from the open market, or any other process by which freshly created U.S. funds are handed over to the French who made loans to the Greeks. The same goes for the Irish, Italians, Spanish and Germans.

The problem is that the Federal Reserve can’t help themselves, they really think they are saving the world. They don’t understand that the Greeks can’t be saved with more money. It is not possible. They have borrowed too much — and as the recently discovered fictional balance sheets show, those who said so from the beginning were correct all along.

As one wag has observed:

When your Debt/GDP is running at 152%, and likely to hit 160-170% next year, there really is little hope in paying back that debt. With Greek bonds trading around 40 cents on the dollar, the markets attribute little hope in receiving their money back either.

But didn’t the propeller-heads all say, we must bailout the Greeks, don’t you know what is at stake?

The bailout-fellow-travellers are about to be in a world of political hurt.

What the Federal Reserve is doing is blowing up the foundation of the political consensus around what the Federal Reserve should do — and they are doing it by bailing out foreigners.

Once the public finds out, the really serious discussion will follow, and it goes something like this: everyone was having fun until Daddy took the T-Bird away.

I went to see Contagion tonight, and can tell you, dear reader, it’s an entertaining film.

A new virus enters the human population, a mutated version of the bird flu, and the film chronicles how Americans, governments and others in the world, including China, muddle through.

“Muddle through” is a phrase used to describe the human condition during the greatest pandemic, caused by the 1918 “Spanish flu,” which, as it turns out, wasn’t in fact Spanish.

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry is a highly readable book I recommend for all who are interested in the actual events that occurred during the last great lethal pandemic to hit humans.

But I digress, a little. Contagion is a movie that shows great restraint and subtly, both in it’s containment of the story to a few key lives facing the treat, while giving the audience, in bite-sized cuts, the ability to understand what will happen during the next pandemic.

Specifically, Contagion has appeal because it gently but clearly shows the limits of the State.

For those not wanting to become forced by circumstances to act in survival mode, as you find out the hard way the limits of the ability of the State to aid you, start preparing to be independent of the State.

Interestingly, in the film, no one is remotely prepared, just like in real life. For example, most Americans have less than three day’s food on hand.

Those who are not prepared often prey upon those who are, go without, or end up taking. Obviously, it is in these times, money loses its value.

But the film is light on the dark side of a pandemic, and interestingly, the most political part of the film is told through the eyes of those in the government who actually know what is happening, as they discover it or experience it.

The investigation or the mystery of what has happened is a fascinating ride, as well as the exercise by the State of its powers to attempt to shut down those whose views diverge from the party line and the State’s applications of sanctions against those part of the State who attempt to help their loved ones by telling them what they know — or bloggers who write about what they think is happening, or has happened.

The film is partly billed as a pandemic in the age of the internet, and one consistent sub plot is the fate, actions and reactions of the government and of society to a population on a desperate hunt for information not forthcoming from the government. It also plays with the morality of making money off of saving lives, and adds greyness pronouncements of crusading in the name of the truth.

While the film proclaims loudly that panic and the collapse of society will kill more than the virus, it does not paint the picture of that assertion — it merely insists on it.

In the “Spanish flu” pandemic, it is pretty clear what killed the most, it was the virus. The second greatest killer was the State’s urge to censor information, which caused many millions to die.

However, the clear warning in the film is simple: those who are not prepared, or do not have the sense or ability to discern the course of events, or to prepare “just in case” — you can see yourself in this film, and what you may find yourself faced with contemplating with having to do, just to muddle through. Not surprisingly, survival favors the prepared. (Although, in pandemics, the lucky gene pool factor ranks high.)

The simple utility of Contagion (while being entertaining) is it’s ability to walk you through being what to expect, not just in a pandemic type crisis, but in any society-wide crisis that puts the normal assumptions and day-to-day goods and services off the rails.

As Perry solidified his lead for the GOP nomination, the opposite has happened to “the One,” who, in short, has become obviously and glaringly undone — in a way that has been so dramatic that even the main stream media cannot ignore it, downplay it or talk around it.

Basically, if there is a credible pollster, Obama has hit that pollster’s all time low, including Gallup, Quinnipiac, CNN, and the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Meanwhile, Gov. Rick Perry leads the GOP field by double digits in the following polls: NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, Gallup, Quinnipiac and CNN.

The fact that the mainstream media (MSM) has begun reporting that “the One” is in real trouble, is directly related to the fact that Governor Perry began to focus their blindingly bias ways on the fact that there is an alternative the MSM could not paint as a idiot or a nutcase (although they tried).

Even Maureen Dowd, in this Sunday’s NYT, mockingly wrote: “The One is dancing on the edge of one term.”

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The great appeal Of Gods and Men is it’s message and it’s story telling. This film made it into my top ten list of movies when I watched it last night, and it has won many awards.

First, it is historically accurate.

Second, the power of the film is undeniable, even though it has subtitles and the majority of its dialogue is in either French or Arabic.

Third, it details the simple life of Trappist Monks who wrestled with the intimate questions of the purpose of their life, death, their beliefs, and service to others — all while living an agrarian life of service to poor Muslims, in a village in Algeria.

There is one scene which captures the entire story and scope of the film, all without a single line of dialogue. During that scene, the music of Tchaikovsky perfectly captures the entire scope of the film, both in it’s entirety up until that point, and of what was to come. While the Monks drank wine at dinner, the music spoke.

This is a must see movie for those inspired by courage and the imperfections of humanity.

If I could, I’d make every high school history class show this film.

Hats off, in particular, to both Michael Lonsdale and Lambert Wilson, whose performances were excellent, textured and true.

Look for Gods of Men on Netflix or you can find it now on Comcast on Demand.

You should watch it — it’s well worth the time.

I was expecting the anti-nuclear power crowd at the White House would have used the recent earthquake in Virginia to wring their hands and nod solemnly about the need to frighten “be concerned” about the close proximity of a nuclear power plant to the epicenter of the quake.

But, wait — silence, even from the White House, who took the ignition of Deep Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico as an opportunity to shut down off-shore drilling in the U.S. — jobs lost be damned.

Why isn’t the White House carping about earthquakes and nuclear power?

How about because the nuclear generating power station shut down, just like it was supposed to, during the quake?

Perhaps it is time to point this out: the 5.9 earthquake happened right next to the North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, Va., an American nuclear power plant which was 10 miles away from the epicenter, and everything worked just as it was supposed to, no trouble at all.

No leaks. No problems, nada.

In fact, 13 American nuclear power plants were shaken by the recent quake, and there was no damage to any of the nuclear systems at any of the power plants.

So chalk one up for the nuclear design teams, whose reactors just took a 5.9 quake in stride.

But the folks at Beyond Nuclear could not keep their mouth shut: “Once again, Mother Nature is warning us that nuclear power is the most brittle of electrical power systems,” said Paul Gunter, director of reactor oversight for the Washington group Beyond Nuclear.

Really Gunter? Oh, and Democrat Rep. Markey couldn’t resist either, his safety Nazi in full bloom, calling for “stronger earthquake safety” after the recent east coast quake.

Everything worked perfectly, but he wants more safety.

Now that the Speaker’s plan is going to be voted on tomorrow, and it is in writing, we have this handy comparison chart between the cut, cap and balance plan and the Boehner Debt and Tax Hike plan, I thought we should review what the debt hike and tax hike plan does:

It does not include the Balanced Budget Amendment, just passed by the U.S. House last week, but promises another vote on what is sure to be a weaker version of the one that already passed the House.

It relegates the Ryan budget to the dust bin of history by creating a super-moderate committee that will force, by Christmas of this year, immediate tax hikes and future promises of small cuts, on the nation.

It’s “cap” on spending in 2012 is a whopping $6 billion, that’s less than the $10 billion the U.S. government spends each day.

It promises cuts that will happen over the course of 10 years, mostly in the out years. (The check is in the mail.)

The plan will increase our debt, by the next election, not decrease it.

The plan will not forestall a credit rating downgrade.

It’s pathetic and should be voted down.

By my count, Freedom Works, Heritage Action, Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth, National Taxpayers Union, among others, are opposed to the Speaker’s plan, and tea partiers are burning up the phone lines in opposition to the Reid plan, the McConnell plan, the Boehner plan and the-never-put-on-paper Obama plan.

Of course, there is one more thing, the Boehner plan and the Reid plan contain very similar cuts in the out years — something to think about when considering just how much Republicans want to actually cut spending.

Oh, for a glimpse of the future debt of the U.S. if a debt hike fails to pass, check out the second graph from Slate.

It is irrational to expect different results from promising cuts in the future and raising the debt limit immediately.

The Dem trap is simple, wait out and refuse any real cuts, and then use Wall Street and the Federal Reserve and others to force Congress into granting new debt immediately, with promises of cuts in ten years.

The new deal sounds like the same old formula, it will change nothing. This is not serious reform.

No cuts ever stick — USG deficit spending always increases — especially now with the super spending catalyst of ObamaCare — that the Dems refused to amend or change.

With the debt limit gun to their heads and screaming that the GOP is behaving irresponsibility, the Dems refuse serious cuts — you know “automatic” cuts to entitlements or a balanced budget amendment.

With their new found debt limit in hand, under this new deal, they will rejoice and spend, spend, spend and never cut because they can borrow, borrow, borrow.

Here is a newsflash: no one believes the Dems or the Rs will cut — and an immediate debt limit increase coupled with “we promise to cut, really, we promise” just like every other debt limit increase, is not believable or credible.

Trust us, it’s different this time, uh, no.

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The deal that The One is offering is to increase the debt limit by $2.4 Trillion, increase taxes by $1 Trillion (on top of the ObamaCare taxes) in return for promises to cut trillions from government spending.
The Debt Limit becomes law immediately.
The taxes become law immediately.
The spending cuts never, ever become law — they are promises never kept — ever.
The GOP has found themselves in this position because they refuse to consider not increasing the debt limit, and then paying down existing debt with cuts.
Once the debt is paid down, if and when the Government needs to borrow, it can, up to the amount of the debt they have paid off.

It is unclear how much clearer things need to get before the elite get it: the strategic correlation of forces is steadily and regularly eroding the position of the West vis-à-vis the Muslim world.

Ironically, Greece, the cradle of early democracy, may or may not, be the proximate cause of the collapse of the leading Western currency: the Euro.

For those Americans who don’t get it, the dollar is worth a whole lot less than one Euro and the dollar is likely to stay at the bottom for many, many years. Even with the Greek crisis, the Euro is the currency of value, for the rest of the planet.

The even more world-view-rocking-news is that the U.S. financial balance sheet is worse than the Greeks.

So the cradle of democracy and its over-watcher, the U.S., are economic basket cases because the elected politicians can’t do a single and simple thing: stop spending.

If anyone believes that any of the $4 Trillion in so-called cuts that the GOP will trade with The One, the Spender-in-Chief, the Trillion Dollar President will actually happen — please, keep smoking whatever you are smoking.

To the happily naive, the Spender in Chief will double cross the GOP with the Fed printing presses, and just by-pass Congress.

That’s just for starters, because Congress itself, with the Dems running the Senate — simply will refuse to carry out the $4 Trillion in so-called, alleged, to-be-announced-but-never-happen, promises-from-a-drunk-spender-to-stop.

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At least something good has come out of the Rep. Wiener scandal, a new word.

My friend and colleague, who insisted I take his name out of this post, made it up.

From now on, any lewd tweet accidentally sent to the tweet universe, should be henceforth known as a twiener (sounded out, it’s tweener).

A Goggle search for the term “twiener” turns up no results found, so, seems this is the first time its on the web.

(Note to the RedState blogging police, I have knowingly violated the 100 word minimum on blog posts.)