Opinion by Paul Plante

As we American people watch this incredible spectacle unfolding around us, with panic spreading and chaos looming large on the horizon as the lights of America blink out and the nation gets literally shut down, with people in San Francisco ordered to “shelter in place,” and New York City threatening to follow suit, this in response to a virus that has so far killed one hundred and eight (108) people in America out of a population of some 330 million, with some 6300 diagnosed cases as of this writing, in all likelihood we missed an article in Marketwatch entitled “Norwegian university urges students to return home from the U.S., cites ‘poorly developed health services’” by Shawn Langlois published March 15, 2020, wherein was stated as follows, to wit:

The U.S. health-care system?

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology clearly isn’t impressed, so it’s urging students studying there to come home immediately.

The university later tweaked the language in the Facebook post so as not to single out the United States, but by then, the slight emerged as a top-trending topic across social media:

“In accordance with the recommendations from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs NTNU strongly recommends that all NTNU students who are outside Norway return home,”

“This applies especially if you are staying in a country with poorly developed health services and infrastructure and/or collective infrastructure, for example, the USA.”

The U.S. health-care system has come under increased scrutiny in recent days as the coronavirus outbreak spreads across the country.

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So, is the US getting a bad rap there, with Norway accusing us of being a country with poorly developed health services?

Is that unfair?

Should we institute some real serious sanctions against the Norwegians to make them real sorry they ever thought to think that way, let alone state it in public, as they have chosen to do?

Or my goodness gracious me, could it possibly be true?

Are we really living in a country with poorly developed health services as the Norwegians say?

Or is it a question of them simply not understanding or comprehending how protection of the public’s health in this country was supposed to be provided, if we didn’t have a public health protection system in this country, especially here in corrupt New York state to the north of Cape Charles, where Democratic Socialist “strongman” Young Andy Cuomo is running around in a frightful panic calling on Trump to send in the Army, that was either broken, as is the case in New York and has been since the 1970s, when Democrat Hugh Carey was governor, or badly bent?

Given that life in America has literally come to a screeching halt, and we are not really going any place, especially on a cruise right now, as a qualified associate level public health engineer knowledgeable of the history of public health, not only in America, but throughout history, going back to the Cloaca Maxima (lit. Greatest Sewer), one of the world’s earliest sewage systems constructed in Ancient Rome in order to remove the waste of one of world’s most populous cities initially constructed around 600 BC under the orders of the king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus, I thought this a good time to delve into the serious question of who really is responsible for protecting the public’s health here in the United States of America, and it is not the federal government, as we clearly see from our own history, to wit:

Health Care: Constitutional Rights and Legislative Powers

Kathleen S. Swendiman Legislative Attorney

April 5, 2010

Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R40846

Summary

The health care reform debate raises many complex issues including those of coverage, accessibility, cost, accountability, and quality of health care.

Underlying these policy considerations are issues regarding the status of health care as a constitutional or legal right.

This report analyzes constitutional and legal issues pertaining to a right to health care, as well as the power of Congress to enact and fund health care programs.

The United States Constitution does not set forth an explicit right to health care.

As a major component of many health care entitlement statutes, Congress has provided funding to pay for the health services provided under law.

Most of these statutes have been enacted pursuant to Congress’s authority to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” to carry out its mandate “to … provide for the … general Welfare.”

The power to spend for the general welfare is one of the broadest grants of authority to Congress in the U.S. Constitution.

The Supreme Court accords considerable deference to a legislative decision by Congress that a particular health care spending program provides for the general welfare.

A number of state constitutions contain provisions relating to health and the provision of health care services.

State constitutions may provide constitutional rights that are more expansive than those found under the federal Constitution since federal rights set the minimum standards for the states.

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And how many people in America are aware of that reality, one must wonder, especially in the wake of all this hysteria and pandemonium unleashed by these hysteria mongers like Young Andy Cuomo of New York state?

And what of the people of Virginia?

Are they aware that the Commonwealth of Virginia has its own state Board of Health, which is a 15-member independent agency that regulates health facilities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, two members of which shall be members of the Medical Society of Virginia, one member shall be a member of the Virginia Pharmaceutical Association, one member shall be a member of the State Dental Association, one member shall be a member of the Virginia Nurses’ Association, one member shall be a member of the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association, one member shall be a representative of local government, one member shall be a representative of the hospital industry, one member shall be a representative of the nursing home industry, one member shall be a representative of the licensed health carriers responsible under Title 38.2 for a managed care health insurance plan, one member shall be a corporate purchaser of health care, two members shall be consumers, one member shall have public environmental health expertise, and one member shall be a representative of the emergency medical services community recommended by the State Emergency Medical Services Advisory Board?

Are they aware that Board is the policy-making arm of the Virginia Department of Health and the law gives the Board a variety of important duties such as establishing the framework for Virginia’s public health services as well as also approving regulations for the Department of Health?

Would they know that it works, or is supposed to work if the system is not broken, with the Virginia Health Planning Board to consider issues of health care policy and financing and issues formal studies on these subject?

And of importance to this specific subject of public health protection, would they know that the Board is supposed to promote health education and outreach, for example, by setting the Department of Health’s program of patient and community health education services to include services addressing health promotion and disease prevention, and encouraging the coordination of local and private sector health education services?

As to COVID, this latest public health “threat” that seems right now overblown with reports coming in today of people in Los Angeles in long lines outside of supermarkets waiting to get in to find the shelves empty of what they need to survive, the Board has the emergency authority to issue “orders and regulations to meet any emergency, not provided for by general regulations, for the purpose of suppressing nuisances dangerous to the public health and communicable, contagious and infectious diseases and other dangers to the public life and health.”

So, have they done that?

Does anyone have a clue?

This Opinion was first published in the Eastern Shore Post in February. After receiving another letter regarding Superintendent Lawrence and the School Board, the Mirror reached out to Nancy Proto about publishing her article here.

If I were to describe my time on the Northampton County School Board in one word, that word would be:  enlightening.  Since moving to the Shore in 2011 one  consistent concern heard over and over by the residents has been the public school system.   “Improve the school system.“  If the schools are not where we want them to be, what should be done? How do school boards improve a school system?

I had no idea, but with 25 years of experience in public education combined with my increasing knowledge of Northampton County, I thought I could help.  I was elected to the school board in November 2015.

Early on, I attended a Virginia School Board Association (VSBA) workshop on Superintendent Evaluation.  It was enlightening. Superintendent Evaluation is a major responsibility of the SB. I discovered we were not following the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) guidelines and reported this to the SB.  Not until over a full year later was a Superintendent Evaluation Committee formed so we could get “on track.”  At that time the board approved the VDOE process for evaluating the superintendent that includes identifying goals and plans to achieve those goals. To date, this process has not been followed.  

In 2017 I attended another VSBA training, “How School Boards Make a Difference.”  Dr. Phil Gore, Director of Board Development Services in Texas, presented.  It was enlightening.  I reported to the SB details including the Six Statistically Significant Actions that High Performing SBs Do That are Related to Student Improvement That Low Performing SB Do Not Do.   There was no interest. 

In 2018 because of the positive feedback from the school boards across the state, VSBA offered two webinars with Dr. Gore on the same subject. My motion for the SB to attend these webinars was approved.  Most did not attend. That July, goals were developed consistent with what those who attended had learned. It was a very good start, but they were not presented to the superintendent until January. The superintendent, subsequently, stated they were not appropriate for a superintendent.  The school board accepted this.  

In August 2019, I reminded the board that we had still not approved goals for the 2018-19 school year, which at that point had already ended, and that the superintendent per his contract was supposed to have provided goals to the SB by September 1st of 2018. 

As school board members we each pledge to “discharge all duties …to the best of my abilities.”  The board as a whole, in my opinion, has not done this. Specifically, to date the Board has not: 

• Followed the superintendent’s contract stating that he: “shall provide proposed goals and objectives….”
• Followed SB policy that states:  the superintendent will “provide to the SB a work plan designed to implement the goals….”  
• Followed the VDOE Guidelines for evaluating the superintendent. 
• Implemented the six researched-based (Lorenzen and McCaw) best practices, namely:

          1. Establish specific goals focused on student achievement.

          2. Develop a plan to achieve goals and how the superintendent will demonstrate progress.                       

          3.  Communicate goals/plan to the community. 

          4.  Base contract decisions on objective evaluation of performance against the goals.

           5.  Base SB work on district goals.  Put goals on SB agenda.

           6.  Monitor progress towards goals – quarterly   

Can School Boards make a difference?  Research says “yes.” Would following these practices override our challenges?  I have no clue, but the SB has a responsibility to do them.  The question is: Do they have the will? To quote Dr. Gore: “Get in the game or get out.  Don’t waste district time or students’ precious learning opportunities.”  

Has there been improvement?  Yes, but if we are looking to improve the schools and have them be where we want them to be, then having the SB fully engaged in practices known to improve schools is a good place to start and, indeed, to follow its own policies.  

We have a community that gives generously to our schools.  We have many students who are eager to learn.  We have many hardworking teachers and administrators who are responsible for setting goals, implementing research-based programs and practices and who are held accountable for doing so.  The SB should hold itself to no less of a high a standard. The students, parents, and community deserve no less.  As a community, we need to hold our School Board accountable.   

Special Opinion to the Mirror by Chas Cornweller

These are the days that I wish Americans were braver than we are. What I mean by that is, special interests have so ingrained themselves into the fabric of who we are, most Americans cannot even recognize when and why they are voting against their own self-interest. And yes, I am talking about Democrats voting for the guy who presents himself as a moderate, safe and firmly planted in the middle of all issues. When in reality we all know he stands with Corporations, the ongoing game of craps nightmare that is Wall Street and the continual bleeding of the middle class by leechlike taxes, roller coaster economies and endless wars. 

How many Americans still alive, remember the depression of the thirties? How many are still alive who not only lived through it, but benefited from the policies of that era? How many alive today can name the programs that pulled our collected asses from the ash heap of a ruined economy and set this nation on a corrective course for a productive society? Unless you are a student of history and or an economist, probably not many. The term Socialism has been bantered about a lot lately. And mostly, it has been used incorrectly and in extreme cases used as a battering ram to accost the left. The startling truth is, the fabric of American economics is woven with the thread of socialism, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. And it mainly stems from the progressive policies of FDR and the failed economic experiment that was America in the twenties.

Socialism in America presents itself as Welfare Subsidies. That is a fact. And as someone who supports this, I cannot deny the truth of it. But who thrives from these subsidies? Who reaps the benefits of the lion’s share? Do America’s poor? How about immigrants and “illegals” or those that enter this country by skirting the “system” eluding the net that would disseminate and therefore either assimilate or deport them? What about those who work but still live below the Well, in actuality, Energy related corporations received a total of 8.4 billion dollars in 2016. In 2017, farmers received 11.5 billion in subsidies or 15% of 75.1 billion in total farm income. Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler Auto and Boeing received a combined total of over 21.3 billion dollars in subsidies. Nike, Intel, Alcoa’s combined total reaches 11.54 billion dollars in subsidies. For a combined total of over 52.7 billion in corporate welfare. I call it that, because that is what it is. These corporations are all blue-chip corporations that live in the public domain on Wall Street and make a yearly profit. In other words, our government is manipulating the crap game with these numbers. Our money. This is not to mention the money our government pays out to other countries. Or money that is bantered about within the Pentagon and our national security in the form of navies, armies and the air forces. Yes, these are ALL social programs.

Now, for those of you who may want to challenge my point about our standing Army, please read Article One, Section Eight, Clause Twelve of the Constitution first before doing so. Yes, I understand to pay the debts and to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. Yes, I understand the laying and collection of taxes and excises to pay for this standing army and/or common defense. Again, read clause twelve. And yes, to provide a safety net for agriculture and education, this is what general welfare clause eluded to. And of course, the argument is much larger and broader than I intend on going into now, suffice to say, the National Bank and its establishment and the implications of a central government versus individual states. That said, fast forward to today, with the Federal Government, Federal Reserve (which is actually not even a governmental agency), Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency, to name just a small percentage of centralized agencies you and I pay for. These are all a form of socialized programs that have been enacted over the course of decades to solidify the power behind the central few who have dominion over the mass majority. Any authoritarian government has developed some form of these programs. Any authoritarian government has developed this. From worst case scenarios with communist Russia in 1917 and Germany with the NAZI party in 1933 to Great Britain, first with royalty coupled with the House of Commons and a political system guaranteed to perpetuate lorded power over the populace. It’s a fact and a necessary evil to ensure order and a sense of well-being. Otherwise, the alternative is anarchy.

But, the elephant in the room is this; within any form of centralized government you have the corruption of the human component to which authority is handed. With human characteristics and flaws, any number of corruptions can set in and take root. Communism, for anyone who has read the history of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, in its purest form is the perfect Utopian concept in which everyone flourishes. There is no argument. I intentionally did not say prospers, as that would be detrimental to the concept for which it is initiated. Democracy, as well, is the fairest in selection of authority and rulers or a ruler, giving each individual a vote and therefore a voice in his or her government. A Republic, too, is fair in that all of its people are incorporated into a government, however run, into a singular or centralized unit, protected and ruled. But the moment the human element is introduced, you have introduced the flaws of men. Greed, avarice, and even mental illness in the form of paranoia or self-possessed cruelty or intolerance can have such an adverse effect as to bring an entire nation to its knees. It has happened in the past and no doubt will happen again.

My point is this. Any form of government has its flaws. Our form of government once worked for a certain group of people. It enabled the middle class to grow and thrive. It also encouraged a class of people to amass great wealth on the backs and labors of many, many people. Our government has built roads, fire stations, police stations, schools, other great institutions of higher learning and wonderful halls and theaters from which our people can take pride of our own national heritage. Many were paid for by our taxes. These great projects were socialism in action. Socialism is an integral part of our nation’s sustained growth. Socialism is necessary to form, build and maintain a fire department, a police station, highway construction, care for the elderly, care for the unborn. It enables those with the brains and the passion, but not the income to achieve greater things. It rebuilds towns and cities wrecked by natural disaster. It conducts the research for discovery for new medicines and fund the engineering science that once took us to the moon. If you fear socialism, you truly do not understand what it can do. You do not understand what it has already done. You do not understand the mechanism of a Social Contract.

What you should fear is not socialism nor the programs, but those that want to take them away, those that demonize them. Put them on the public shelf for private consumption and profit and narrow those fields so that only a few are able to partake. While all the while they make profits on your ill health. They make profits on your freedoms. They make profits on sending your sons and daughters to war. They make profits on your miseries. Socialism levels the field. It helps to evenly distribute that what is already accessible to us. It enables those who want to do better, contribute more, to do so. It lessens the authoritative hand in revoking freedom and voice. Socialism gives rise to justice and lessens the burden that corruption brings from high, on the common man. “Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last twenty years. Socialism is what they call public power. Socialism is what they called Social Security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank security deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.” Harry S. Truman New York speech titled Rear Platform and Other Informal Remarks dated October 10, 1952.

This past week, and I am sure in the coming months, my fellow Americans will fearfully and obtusely enter into a new phase in American history. One where the reins of power will be handed willfully and intentionally to an authoritative oligarchy. Handed over to a group of elderly white men whose power and moneyed interest are destined to eventually bring this nation to its knees, perhaps along with the rest of world as well. They care not one wit about the working man and working woman. They care not one wit about the children nor the generations that possibly may come after them. They only care for their moment in the sun today, their self-interests, and the power structure they have so carefully nurtured and crafted. And should that power structure begin to shift and crack, then be rest assured, you will eventually see and experience the full fury of humanity without conscience, humanity run off the rails, with all its flaws, and all of its darkness, and all of the godlessness man can conjure to injure his fellow man. All of this will be done because we, as a people, voted with fear. We voted with trepidation instead of faith. We voted with our pocketbooks and bank accounts instead of our morality. We voted self-interest over the common good for all. For they sow the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind.

Special Opinion to the Mirror written by Chas Cornweller.

I’d been thinking lately of re-reading, George Orwell’s book, Nineteen Eighty-Four. I had read it once back in High School, after the required reading of Animal Farm. But it was Nineteen Eighty-Four that left me in a mild stage of psychological shock. I was sixteen at time. I am not wholly sure what the catalyst was, but I am pretty sure it was the pre-conditioning of my Vietnam years. The falsehoods of those years from our government and the final stages of the Nixon administration and the eventual lies told to the national press and the American people. Once I grasped the full meaning of Orwell’s masterpiece, it possibly dawned on me. This could happen to America and my world. Ah, the innocence of youth!

Now don’t misunderstand, I was raised a well-adjusted child in a strong middle-class family in a small town in rural America. I went to church most every Sunday. I had plenty of same-aged friends, plus cousins and a family that was close. I also had a paper route during these formative years and a natural inquisitiveness that led me to read those headlines and delve deeper into their portent meanings. So, by the time I was sixteen most of my world-view was shaped by a daily reading of world events coupled with a weekly rendering of current events before my civics class. There was no talk of “fake news” in those days. In fact, historically (and unless someone has altered the entire history of the world since the mid-fifties until the late seventies) I would venture to say almost ninety-five percent of what I saw, read and believed has come to pass as historic fact. Four administrations of presidents DID lie about the objectives and results of a war half-way across the world. ALL of those young college students were correct in deducing that the draft was for naught.

President Nixon was a crooked politician and rightly was well on his way to being impeached. Fortunately for America, he took the honorable route and resigned his presidency. But, in the year nineteen and seventy-two, the issues were not so black and white. And the nation was divided. The war on poverty and the war for social justices were just as bleak and critical then as they are now. But the lie was then, well, we’re winning the war on Social Justice. We’re going to win the war on poverty, as well. Today, these same wars continue. But hindsight being twenty-twenty, we can see all the reasons why they failed, can we not?

America has been wandering in the wilderness since the closing days of World War II. It is interesting to read somewhere…that when Germany and the Soviet Union entered into an uneasy truce (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939) that the collective world held its breath and prayed for peace. But, when Germany invaded Russia in nineteen and forty-one, suddenly the Soviet propaganda was that World War Two was a Capitalist Fraud. It certainly appeared that way to Communists around the world. But, again, in hindsight, we all know it was Hitler’s goal all along to eliminate the Bolsheviks. But what was the true intent of World War Two? Obviously, Japan had a different intent than Nazi Germany. But if you look closely enough, both Germany and Japan had rightful justifications for their intentions. This is the double-sided curse of history. Just as, if you look closely enough at America’s history, you will see a dark and horrendously bloody side to its birth and growth as a super-power nation. But most will not look, nor care too. They can’t handle that truth. Which brings me to our wandering these past seventy-odd years as a megalithic drunken giant welding an oversized and bloody sword. Anyone who dares to cross our path and tries to usurp any amount of power from this giant will face its wrath. To the extent that it sometimes has been to our own detriment. Case in point: Research one OSS member A. Peter Dewey and his relationship with communist aligned troops (Viet Minh) and how America came so very close to resolving closure with the Vietnamese people and the French colonials. Ah, but history is not kind. And America was so fixated on rooting out communism from every nook and crevice, ears were closed along with eyes and imaginations in nineteen forty-five. Peace died the day Dewey was killed accidentally by the Viet Minh and therefore, twenty years later, so had fifty-three thousand of America’s youth. Look it up…research the facts.

So, what does this have to do with the book Nineteen Eighty-four? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Perhaps somewhere in the middle? You see, we’ve been at war nearly twenty years in the Middle East (Disputed Lands in Orwell’s book). We’ve been told we are there to win the hearts and minds (build schools, hospitals, preach Democracy and goodwill) of these people. We set out to bring Afghanistan into the twentieth century. We set out to free the Iraq people from a despot (which, incidentally we helped to prop up as dictator during the Iran-Iraq conflict – historically speaking). So, yes, he was our problem. Nearly twenty years of our military presence has brought us to where? Just this past week, another major attack on our embassy in Bagdad and the killing of Iran’s General Soleimani supposedly to ratchet down the violence in the area.

At what point, how could all of this have been prevented? At which junction, in the drunken ramblings of this fierce and all-powerful giant, did we take a wrong turn? When was peace on the minds of the ones who are responsible for this mess? And just who is responsible? Was it Truman, when he insulted Soviet Minister Molotov at the White House on April 23^rd, Nineteen Forty-Five? Perhaps it was Neville Chamberland caving to Adolf Hitler in giving him the western portion of Czechoslovakia in Nineteen and Thirty-Eight? We could go back to the unfortunate and highly ill-advised Treaty of Versailles of Nineteen-Nineteen. One could argue that this treaty set Germany on the course for the Second World War and so on and so forth. Maybe it was France and England carving up the Middle East just prior to the First World War ending. So many crossroads. So many ill-advised decisions. So many empty-headed politicians guiding the multitudes towards oblivion.

Now, of course, I sit at my computer with complete twenty-twenty hindsight on all of these historic and infamous moments, so it’s easy to say what went wrong. But, here’s the rub; I spoke up to anyone who would listen in Two Thousand and Three and warned that it would not go well in Iraq if we invaded a sovereign nation (unconstitutional by the way – Congress or no Congress) without provocation from that nation. Many I spoke with, agreed. Many did not. It is now history.

I have been saying for years, that this nation’s reliance on oil and oil product is much like a drug addict’s desperation and needs. America claims it is protecting its vital interest in this region. The oil does not belong to us! It would be comparably the same if Japan had staked a claim with the Bush family during the nineteen-fifties and then placed a standing army in Texas and Oklahoma to guarantee unlimited access to that oil. The Bushes get mega-rich, while the rest of this country withers. Meanwhile, Japan occupies our sovereign lands. Do you not understand how much this must chafe at the people of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait? The drunken giant indeed.

So, perpetual war…at least until the wells run dry? Try asking the Ministry of Peace. I am sure we are finally gaining the upper hand within those disputed lands. As long as Eurasia doesn’t interfere.  Feeling that generous helping of prosperity and wealth yet? If not, try the Ministry of Plenty. Perhaps you’ll get lucky with one of those many lotteries they like to put in front of us.  If you still feel like you aren’t getting the answers you need, or you feel your news feed has let you down. (you know, it’s all fake news) try the Ministry of Propaganda. I am sure you’ll find what you’ll need from them and if not, it’s all soon to be there, in the history books. Fresh from the publications of the Ministry of Truth.

As a sixteen-year kid, I could not understand my anxiety by reading just one book. Little did I know then, what I know now. I was reading the future. It does cut close to the bone.  Interesting to me, it was Animal Farm that opened that door. Ironic.   

Are places like Harvard or UVA just hedge funds masquerading as universities? Take Harvard, where $40.9 billion is under active management in its endowment, and it buys things like vineyard water rights.

The school to prison pipeline has been surpassed by the school to debtor’s prison parkway. High schools have failed inner-city and rural kids so now they kick education down the road to the colleges and tell every kid they must attend college. The brainwashing starts in grade school. Calling them “public” schools is the real propaganda. They are government schools.

Yes, we are told that college is necessary for success, and if you can’t afford it, well we have these things called ‘student loans’ backed by the US government. In essence, the biggest predatory lender is the US government.

Progressive Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders seek to gain power and buy votes by addressing symptoms, not root causes of problems. Making college “free” would make it even more expensive.

The problem with college debt is that colleges are “selling” educations that are more expensive than they are worth. If people received jobs that validated the costs of those educations, they’d be able to pay it back with no issue.

Students and their parents are not understanding return on investment of education and taking out far too much debt versus the product’s worth.

This is made worse by the government being willing to lend with no direct criteria (for example, loaning more for an engineering degree vs. a Gender Studies degree).

Forgiving college debt on the tax payer’s dime does not address these problems and shirks personal responsibility, transferring it to other people. If there should be any responsibility transfer, it is to the colleges.

Let the colleges forgive the loans, since they sold ones that didn’t generate an ROI.

Next, and more importantly, get the government out of the lending game, make colleges have skin in the game, increase education and transparency on ROI of education debt and debt in general and allow loans to be tied to relevant factors (GPAs, degrees, etc.).

It’s not just college though, the same goes for healthcare. We need to address the cost of healthcare, not just try to make it “free”, which we know will ultimately bloat costs and decrease quality.

Example: What are the costs for the following procedures on average?

Lasik surgery, breast augmentation, and knee replacement.

Lasik-less than $2k an eye, breastwork is $3700 (less than $2k a boob),
but knee replacement is averaging $49,500 per knee (around $100k for both knees).

Knees are covered by health insurance but boob jobs aren’t. It’s a competition. Allowing for competition, transparency and having the recipient pay brings costs down.

The left is good at pointing fingers, but they are not addressing the root causes of problems to find solutions. We have to stop throwing money at symptoms.

Warren knows this, and Grifter Bernie doesn’t care to understand it- it’s not part of his game.

This is not just a Democrat problem. The Republicans are just as bad. They have not been able to put a simple healthcare plan forward that could pass Congress in 15 years, during which time they have whined about the ACA like little children.

When it is all said and done, we need free-market solutions. Competition and transparency bring prices down and quality up.

 Opinion piece by Charles Landis.

This is the second of a series of commentaries on topical  issues related to  the 2020 election process. The 1619 Project is a narrative promoted by the NY Times in an effort to rewrite our history and the Project as being  the TRUE history of our founding. Identity politics is the most salient identifier in the Democrat Party agenda and the Project endeavors to reduce all of our history from founding to Trump to issues of slavery and race.The Times narrative asserts the true founding of the United States began in 1619, not 1776, with the arrival of a  Portuguese ship at what is now Fort Monroe near Jamestown with a cargo 20 Africans from Angola, Africa.

They were sold for provisions and required to work on plantations in the colony. Thus, according to the Times (erroneously), they were the first slaves in America and slavery began with the English colony of Virginia. Note. Slavery in America began with the Spanish in Florida and Mexico. Also, at that time, nearly every colonist was under an indenture contract and required to work for seven years before freed. Many did not live beyond their indenture period.

The Africans, however, were brought against their will and, because they had no contract, they were  forced to work more years and freed at will of their masters. It was not until 1661 that there was codification of Africans being  bonded for life. Relationships were based mostly on ownership of property not race.

To understand more about this, read my essay on Anthony Johnson, one of the Angolans, in my book. An Introduction to the History of the Virginia Eastern Shore.Thus, the Times Project argues, the struggle for democracy, equality, civil rights, and social justice began with slavery in 1619 and not with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The white founders, and as well the founding documents, were full of contradictions and lies. The Declaration of Independence was written by a white nationalist slave holder and the Revolutionary War was fought  because the founders feared England would ban slavery; white supremist slave owners needed cheap labor to work their plantations.

 Th 1619 Project Manager and principal writer is Nikole Hanna-Jones, a Times reporter, assisted by other Time staffers  and sociologists who contributed essays and poems. She says she fact checked with the Smithsonian  and dismisses criticism by historians  as being in the DNA of white nationalists.

 The Times Project further argues that the evil and brutality of industrialization and capitalism, the greed of Wall Street, and all of the battles for social and economic justice arose out of the plantation system in the Southern colonies. The great wealth and power of the American economy was built on the backs of African American slaves. The demand for free universal health care, public education, women’s suffrage et al  began with black legislators during Reconstruction.

   While the 1619 Project has been acclaimed by leftist media, it has been much criticized by such highly regarded historians as Gordon Wood, James McPherson, and James Oakes. Each of these historians deplored that the Times would do this without consulting any historians of whole period and with intention to have movies made and the Project taught in high schools. Gordon Wood said “none of the leading scholars of the whole period have been consulted” in writing the 1619 Project. And, he was “disappointed and disheartened at the reductive nature of the 1619 Project.

It was so wrong, in so many ways”. James McPherson, says of the 1619 Project “biased and narrow of the country’s history”…”one sided account which lacks context and perspective” …and “ left most of history out”.James Oates says “ to connect chattel slavery to capitalism is over simplistic.”The preeminent historian on slavery and the Civil War , Eric Foner, substantially contradicts the thesis of the Times 1619 Project. In his recently published book, The Second Founding, (2019,) he explains how the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (1865-1870) remade the Constitution.

These Amendments were passed by the Congress in the Reconstruction period after the Civil War (1865-1877 and there were no African Americans in the Congress. Historians and constitutional scholars agree that these  Amendments were the building blocks upon which social and civils rights were, and continue to be, built and progress… not as the narrative of the Times 1619 Project promotes.

After reading articles written by Hanna-Jones and listening to her and other lectures on the 1619 Project, I consulted my library and re-read two books by highly regarded historians on  the history of western civilization and colonization of  the  Americas:  “Civilization, A New History of the Western World”, by historian Roger Osborne, and  “American Colonies, The settling of North America” (2001) by historian Alan Taylor. 

In “Civilization, A New History of the Western World”, historian Roger Osborne,  chronicles the history of Western civilization from ancient Greece to today. His view of western civilization is a history of invasions of “lesser” peoples, their lands and cultures, and of genocide. He concludes that modern western civilization (post-medieval) could not and cannot co-exist with any other culture; unable to learn from other cultures without destroying  or dominating and making them part of the western ways.In “American Colonies, The settling of North America (2001) historian Alan Taylor explains that during the sixteenth and early seventeenth the Europeans believed their own peasants and lower class folks were little better than Native Americans and Africans.

Their belief in superiority was primarily based upon cultural considerations and Christianity; in time, by assimilation into western ways and conversion to Christianity, they could become equal to the lower order of English/European. By the late 1600s, because of the demand for cheap labor by the plantation system and growth of the African slave population, legal codes were introduced in the South that bound  African slaves for life with severe treatment.

 Western civilization may be defined as a cultural heritage stretching back 2500 years; from ancient Greece to the frontier of Silicon Valley; greatly influenced by  Judeo-Christian traditions. Contrary to the  narrative of the  Democrat/Socialist party ( ie as narrated in the NY Times 1619 Project) the belief in white supremacy did not begin  with slavery in the early colonial period of Virginia and progression to the election of Donald Trump. Racism, the identification of Africans as slaves and inferior to whites, began with the explorations and colonies of Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. First in the plantations of the Azores and Madeiras, then to  the Caribbean and to Spanish America (Florida, Mexico, and the Southwest)  and in the seventeenth century in the English colonies of North America.

In ancient Greece and Rome there was a belief that their civilizations were superior to all other civilizations in the known world. Herodotus, considered the first historian, writing in the mid-fifth century, referred to non-Greeks as barbarians…lesser peoples. During the Crusades (more broadly considered the period between the 11th and 13th centuries) the European invaders into the Muslin Eastern  Mediterranean were considered of the Christian race.

Muslims were considered as pagans. The formation in Europe of sovereign nation sates in the 16th century was based upon cultural, linguistic, and geographic identities where each believed their nation and culture were superior to the other nations. The formation of sovereign nation states in turn led to exploration and colonization in Africa and the American continents.

For 2500 years, from Ancient Greece to exploration and colonization of lands far distant from Europe, there developed a pride in the  accomplishments of Western civilization: art, literature, architecture and , importantly, weapons technology which gave superior fighting power to conquer and subjugate. While slavery had existed from the time of Babylon, the discovery of new lands and primitive peoples across the Atlantic in the sixteenth century convinced Europeans to identify with Greek and Roman civilizations and belief they were a civilized people surrounded by barbarians.

The belief in white supremacy is also the belief that the progress of humans and civilization was a linear progression from the stone age and social Darwinism.The Europeans did not invade the interior of Africa to capture slaves;  one tribe raided another for the purpose of capturing slaves which they traded for guns   and ammunition. First the slaves were sent to plantations in the Azores and Madeiras and then to the Caribbean and North and South American colonies.

In North America, Native American tribes raided other tribes and sold captives which were transported to plantations in the Caribbean.      While there are many dark chapters  in the history of western civilization, the development of the constitutional guarantees of liberty, from Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence, American Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Reconstruction Amendments is the great progression in western civilization and something that all can be proud of.

The period 1619 t0 2019 is part of that progression. It is for that reason that the 1619 Project is so disappointing; they do not rise above identity politics.   At an event commemorating the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Angolans in Virginia, Governor Northam announced his formation of a commission to “review educational standards for teaching black history” because Virginia has “for too long told a false narrative of ourselves.” There is reason to suspect this will become his 1619 Project.     

Opinion by Paul Plante.

“DEMOCRATS DECLARE WAR ON AMERICA!”

The last time they did this, they being the Democrats, and that being renouncing our American values, and our Republican beliefs, and declaring war on We, the American People at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861 when the secessionist Democrats opened fire with 50 cannons upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, the Democrats had their own Constitution which stated thusly in their Preamble, to wit:

We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.

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The oath all loyal secessionist Democrats who adhered to the Democrat constitution, was as follows:

“I, (name) aged (________), born in (state), appointed from (county, state), do solemnly swear or affirm that while I continue in the service I will bear true faith, and yield obedience to the Confederate States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against their enemies, and that I will observe and obey the orders of the President of the Confederate States, and the orders of the Officers appointed over me, according to the Rules and Articles of War.”

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Now, that is an indication of just how seriously the Democrats take not being a part of the same United States of America that We, the People who cleave to the United States Constitution the Democrats have again renounced are a part of – they truly are more than willing to go to war with us over the issue, as they did back then, and as they did again on 18 December 2019 when Democrat Congresswoman from sanctuary city San Francisco, California walked onto the floor of the United States House of Representatives appropriately dressed for the occasion in a spiffy black designer executioner’s outfit made specially for her for the occasion by top Democrat designers, and walked up to our United States Constitution, and like Leon Czolgosz did when he shot President McKinley, she figuratively pulled out a gun and at point blank range, fired a fatal shot into our Constitution – BANG!

And then, just to make sure our Constitution is really dead – BANG!

In goes a second shot, with the two Articles of Impeachment Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff and “Jumping Jerry” Nadler fabricated out of cobwebs, moonbeams and cosmic dust particles with which to remove sitting American president Donald Trump from office for daring to investigate CORRUPTION in Ukraine involving Democrat presidential frontrunner Joe Biden.

In essence, this was a mob hit on Donald Trump and nothing more, but that mob hit on Trump by the Democrats was really a mob hit on us, We, the American people, and accordingly, constituted an ACT OF AGGRESSION by the Democrats that was tantamount to an ACT OF WAR!

Interestingly, Czolgosz claimed to have killed McKinley because he was the head of what Czolgosz thought was a corrupt government, which today is Nancy Pelosi’s ostensible reason for going after Trump, and on October 29, 1901, the unrepentant killer’s last words were “I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people — the working people,” which is how Nancy Pelosi wants us to view Trump today – as an enemy of the “good people,” meaning Democrats.

Going back to the last time the Democrats declared war on the United States of America, this according to the United States Senate website, in November 1860 a deeply divided nation teetered on the brink of civil war.

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In December of 2019, once again, and thanks again to the Democrats, a deeply divided nation again teeters on the brink of a civil war, and on 18 December 2019, that brink may well have been surpassed with the shots fired into our Constitution by Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler with their bogus “articles of impeachment” based on FABRICATED EVIDENCE.

Getting back to those times, so that we have our own history as a guide, on November 10, 1860, James Chesnut of South Carolina became the first senator to leave the Senate to support the Confederacy.

On December 20 South Carolina seceded from the Union and on that same day, the Senate established a “Committee of Thirteen” to examine plans to save the Union, which is something we need for them to do again today!

On January 9, 1861, Mississippi became the second state to secede and that action prompted Senator Jefferson Davis to address the Senate on January 10, imploring his colleagues to allow for peaceful secession of the Southern states.

The, on January 21 five senators from Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, led by Davis, bade farewell to the Senate.

The secession of Southern states and the withdrawal of their elected representatives forced an unprecedented constitutional crisis in Congress.

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And here we are again today, with another unprecedented constitutional crisis in Congress provoked by Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Democrat “constitutional scholar” Jamie Raskin, and the Democrat party.

Getting back to history, on March 14, 1861, senators debated what to do with seats left vacant by their Southern colleagues.

Did the states or their representatives have the right to leave the Union?

Some senators, such as Maine’s William Pitt Fessenden, insisted that Southern states did not have the right to withdraw from the Union.

By leaving the Senate, Fessenden argued, Southern members had effectively resigned their seats.

Others, such as Delaware’s James Bayard, believed states did have the right to secede and that seats held by Southern secessionists no longer existed.

The Senate should not declare their seats vacant but simply strike their names from the roll.

After a heated exchange, the Senate sided with Fessenden and passed a resolution declaring the seats of six of their departed colleagues “vacant” and authorizing the Secretary of the Senate to strike their names from the Senate roll.

In July the Senate debated the fate of Southern members whose terms had not expired and who had not formally notified the Senate of their withdrawal.

An intense debate followed. Senator Milton Latham of California opposed expulsion, insisting that it reflected poorly “upon the personal character of the individual” and implied “turpitude.”

The author of the resolution, New Hampshire’s Daniel Clark , urged his colleagues to pass the resolution and “deny here, on the floor of the Senate, the right of any State to secede,” by expelling Southern members “from the councils of the nation.”

The Senate approved Clark’s resolution on July 11, 1861, expelling 10 absent members by a vote of 32-10.

Senators barred four more members for disloyalty during the course of the war.

On December 4, 1861, the Senate expelled John Breckinridge of Kentucky for taking up “arms against the Government he had sworn to support.”

On January 10, 1862, the Senate voted unanimously to expel Missouri’s two senators, Waldo Johnson and Trusten Polk, for “sympathy with and participation in the rebellion against the Government of the United States.”

On February 5, 1862, the Senate passed a resolution to expel Indiana’s Jesse Bright for disloyalty to the Union based on a letter he addressed to “His Excellency Jefferson Davis,” in which Bright introduced his acquaintance, a Texas arms dealer, to the president of the Confederacy.

A few states, such as Missouri and Kentucky, elected new members to replace those who were expelled.

The Unionist government in Virginia sent two senators to Capitol Hill.

Many desks remained unoccupied in the Senate Chamber throughout the war years and into the Reconstruction era, serving as painful reminders of the nation’s disunion.

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DISUNION, people!

Thanks to the Democrats declaring war on We, the American People and OUR United States Constitution on 18 December 2019, here we are, all over again!

The impeachment effort against President Trump hinges on his motives, and has he used that power for personal gain?

The questions about Hunter Biden and his involvement with Burisma Holdings, the company that paid Hunter Biden tens of thousands of dollars per month to serve on its board, was on the Ukrainian prosecutor’s radar before Mr. Trump became president. The question is whether the Obama administration, including Vice President Joseph Biden, used America’s power to influence Ukraine’s government.

These questions are matters of established public concern. A president has a right to seek answers about them.

Trump’s actions are coherent with what he has stated for decades. He believes that America’s leadership class has harmed the country even as it has enriched itself and entrenched its power through the federal bureaucracy and career politicians.

Insular Washington inside-the-beltway dealings, from foreign policy to the ways in which career politicians and their families can make millions off their connections, are seen by Mr. Trump and his voters as the source of the country’s problems.

Both parties have contributed to endless wars and declining manufacturing–and the Deplorables have felt most of the pain.

This corruption is part of the fabric that makes up politicians like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, and the Bush Dynasty. They are the “deep state.”

Mr. Trump can be a bull in a china shop, but like it or not, he is an outsider that was elected as a force for change. (Mr. Trump, unlike many of the politicians like Obama and Biden made his fortune before entering politics.)

Which makes it clear why he is being attacked by the corrupt political class and the media outlets that protect them. Trump is being impeached for things that are among the Executive Branch’s well-established powers.

 In 2016, Vice President Biden used the threat of withholding aid to pressure the president of Ukraine at that time, Petro Poroshenko, to dismiss the country’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin.

Mr. Shokin was widely perceived as corrupt by the United States and international officials. Mr. Biden potentially stood to gain something himself from the prosecutor’s firing.

Even then, those powers of the Executive Branch allow for the ability to delay supplying congressionally authorized aid. Even using a delay to get foreign leaders to cooperate with an administration’s demands is not itself an offense of the kind that the Constitution demands for impeachment.

This year, challenger, Volodymyr Zelensky, who had painted the incumbent as corrupt, won the Ukrainian election.

Trump then tries to get Ukraine’s new leader to look into Burisma, the Bidens and Mr. Shokin’s dismissal, that is, fight corruption–something he said he was going to do.

Trump’s opponents treat deep state mechanics as if they were laws. But Mr. Trump openly campaigned in 2016 as someone who would “drain the swamp” and end the legal but corrupt trade in money and influence.

The people also voted for Trump to change America’s foreign policy. The Democrats and Republicans, along with the Civil Service had embroiled the country in endless wars and dubious adventures such as Libya (which cost an ambassador his life) and Syria. Everyone knows that Trump has open disdain for career officials serving in places like Ukraine. He also believes this is something he was elected to take care of. What we have thus far seen in the impeachment hearings makes it clear. The objectives of deep state and career bureaucrats are different from the President’s.

But, Trump is the President, and he gets to make policy decisions, not worthless rats like Lt. Col. Vindmen.

Asking Zelensky, elected on an anti-corruption agenda to account for Ukraine’s dealings with the Bidens is perfectly legitimate. Exposing the corruption of the Obama Administration is in the legitimate interest of the United States.