PK'S NOTE: This is our society now.

Burning Babies

By J R Dunn

It’s not widely known that the Nazis used human beings as fuel for the ovens of their death camps. Body fat will burn adequately, and the Nazis had a surplus in the form of overweight individuals newly arrived at the camps. A few of these unfortunates – most of them women – would be murdered early in the morning and set alight. The day’s total of victims of gassing, starvation, disease, and brutality would then be thrown on top. If necessary, some could be set aside for use if more heat was required.

This fact is overlooked in many histories of the Holocaust because – obviously enough – it goes beyond the disgusting and into the demonic. (This is a case where delicacy has worked against true decency: many Holocaust deniers take advantage of this oversight by arguing that the Nazis lacked the fuel to burn their victims. It’s usually put in the form of “It takes 7.3 liters of gas to burn a body. Where did they get all that gas?” – often with an identical little flick of the hand, as if you’re being presented with a full can of gas. It’s probably the most convincing factoid that such people have in their arsenals.)

This is brought to mind by news that human bodies – in the form of aborted and miscarried infants discarded as “medical waste” – have been burned both in the U.S. and U.K. for purposes of power generation.

In the U.K., this involved over 15,000 infants burned to heat National Health Service hospitals. (It goes without saying that it would be the NHS, the most inhuman department of the British government.) This practice continued for two years before it became public in late March and was immediately banned as “totally unacceptable.” Women were told that their babies had been “cremated”.

In the U.S., it was Oregon, the state that also pioneered euthanasia, that was burning babies for fuel. Early this week the Catholic Herald of British Columbia exposed a program that shipped medical waste – including dead children – to an energy plant in Brooks, Oregon. After being publicized by right-to-life outlets – above all, LifeNews.com – the practice was halted on Wednesday.

Two points leap immediately to mind: the first is that abortion, one of the few true sacraments of the left, corrodes and degrades everything it touches. This is far beyond what even the harshest critics predicted back in 1973, though in hindsight, it seems inevitable.

The second is, what kind of soulless automatons were involved in carrying out these programs? The state seems to have no problem finding such types when it needs them. Will any of them pay any price at all? I wouldn't hold my breath.

The Sebelius legacy: more than half of Obamacare deadlines missed

By Thomas Lifson

We have more proof that assigning control over our health care to government bureaucrats is very bad idea, with the release of a Congressional Research Service report on the deadlines for action contained in the Obamacare legislation. Elizabeth Harrington of the Free Beacon reports:

The administration has failed to meet 44 statutory deadlines required under Obamacare, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

The report, released on Monday, documents every provision with a specific deadline within the health care law and the administration’s actions taken as of April 15, 2014. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has missed more than half of the 83 deadlines mandated since March 2011.

The missed deadlines range from several days to years. The administration was only four days late in issuing a final regulation for HIPAA electronic transactions, while it was two years and seven months past the deadline for a report on domestic violence victims on Indian reservations.

Victimology fans take note:

Several reports that were late related to Native American health.

But don’t worry about the bureaucrats. There are no consequences for their failures. The Obamacare legislation could not fund space in its 2000 pages for any:

In a section addressing the “Legal Effect of Deadlines,” the report explained that private civil litigation is likely the only way to make the administration enforce deadlines in Obamacare.

The CRS said Congress could pass legislative “hammers” that would require the executive branch to follow deadlines or face legal consequences, such as “the loss of agency funding if the final regulations were not promulgated by the statutory deadline.”

The CRS said that due to the law’s “complexity” it had to exclude numerous other provisions of Obamacare, which only have “effective dates” and not hard deadlines.

If HHS follows the model used by the IRS, the bureaucrats who missed the deadlines may end up getting bonuses and extra days off. It’s great being part of the ruling class.

Vast powers of new Obamacare agency

By Rick Moran

No doubt you've already heard of the new Independent Payment Advisory Board - Sarah Palin's "Death Panel." The sweeping, unaccountable powers of this agency threaten widespread rationing of Medicare dollars. Thankfully, due to incompetence and the administration being busy with other Obamacare chores, the 15 experts that will sit on the IPAB board haven't even been nominated yet, so we are spared their tender ministrations for the time being.

But you've probably never heard of Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation - a wicked stepchild of Obamacare - that will have broad, sweeping powers to change Medicare without congressional approval.

Wall Street Journal:

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has flown below the political radar. That's due to its seemingly innocuous mission: promoting new and more efficient "payment systems" and "models of care." But this agency is just as dangerous as IPAB. It is a bureaucracy within the massive Department of Health and Human Services superstructure and therefore run by the president's political appointees. But unlike most of the federal bureaucracy, the agency never has to go back to Congress to get an appropriation. ObamaCare provided it with $10 billion, upfront, to cover its costs for a full 10 years.

At the end of that first decade, and every decade thereafter, the agency will get another $10 billion appropriation. This massive infusion of funding has allowed the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to grow from 68 employees in 2012 to a planned 440 full-time workers in 2015. About 10% of the agency's funding is going to personnel and administrative expenses.

Permanent, recurring appropriations are sometimes provided to federal agencies fighting fraud and abuse. But Congress generally requires other agencies to request a new appropriation every year. It's one important check against bureaucratic abuse of power. And it's a check that this agency will never have to go through.

The statute also gives the Center wide-ranging authority to alter the Medicare and Medicaid programs without further congressional action. It is supposed to be testing new ways to pay providers of medical services. Changes that are found through pilot programs to reduce costs without harming quality, or found to be budget neutral while improving quality, can be implemented nationwide through regulatory fiat.

A billion dollars over 10 years for staffing this agency. All those people have to be given something to do. Just what is it they're planning?

The agency's broad mandate reveals the mind-set of ObamaCare's authors. The premise is that the federal government is best positioned to lead an effort in innovation in medical delivery, despite all evidence to the contrary. The history of Medicare's payment systems over four decades is one of politicized decision-making by regulators, protection of incumbent providers, and roadblocks to new medical technologies and new ways of doing business, such as using information technology to consult with patients, or employing non-physician clinics for routine patient care. It's the opposite of an environment conducive to innovation. Consequently, inefficiency is rampant in Medicare's traditional fee-for-service program.

[...]

Rather than build on this progress, ObamaCare cuts payments to Medicare Advantage plans by more than $150 billion over a decade—and relies instead on the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to prop-up the more costly fee-for-service program with government-led innovation. What's likely to transpire isn't innovation but price controls on medical procedures to give fee-for-service a chance to compete against more efficient Medicare Advantage plans. The agency's authority is broad enough to allow across-the-board cuts in payments to hospitals and physicians, and lower reimbursements for pharmaceuticals and related products as well, all in the name of innovation.

Once again, we see that Obamacare is not about improving quality or access, but rather control. The Medicare Advantage plans had to go because the government didn't control them - even if they were working well and consumers were happy with them. What we're likely to get with the CMMI is slash and burn management of Medicare - with the IPAB doling out services to all those "deserving" of treatment.

Lengthening Shadows

By Mark Steyn
How bad are things for free speech in America right now? This week the Supreme Court turned its attention to an Ohio law under which people can be fined or jailed if the "election commission" pronounces them guilty of "lying" in a political ad. Orwell's Ministry of Truth, as Justice Scalia rightly called it, is alive and well and living in Columbus and some 15 other state capitals. Steve Huntley writes about the Ohio case in The Chicago Sun-Times and connects it to a broader "hostility to free speech that ought to be worrying to Americans of all persuasions". In fact, certain persuasions are not in the least bit worried about it:

The left is behind much of the hostility to free speech these days. College campuses, among the most liberal environments in America, are notorious for shouting down or outright rejecting speakers they don't agree with. The most notable recent example was Brandeis University withdrawing an honorary degree planned for woman's rights activist Ayaan Hiras Ali, who has said politically incorrect things about Islam.
Commentator Mark Steyn is being hounded with a lawsuit for daring to question climate change alarmists. The head of Mozilla and the directors of the California Musical Theater and the Los Angeles Film Festival lost their jobs for donations backing a winning 2008 California ballot initiative against gay marriage.
These are sad days for free speech, free debate, free minds.

Indeed. And I'm glad to see Mr Huntley writing about it in a mainstream, big-city American newspaper. One of the differences between my current woes and my battles up north a few years back is that, within a relatively short space of time, commentators at the CBC and The Globe & Mail and other bastions of Canadian liberalism, including, eventually, The Toronto Star, identified the threat to free speech and addressed it very trenchantly.
By contrast, America's unreadable monodailies "don't see a scandal here," in Huntley's words. "That tells you a lot."

PK'S NOTE: Sorry, I've run out time, here's some headlines that, if you're interested, you can click and read.